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| MEMOIR 

OF 




ALEXANDER HENRY 


RHIND, 


OF SIBSTER. 




1!Y 

JOHN STUAET, 




SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND. 


EDINBURGH : 




PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY BY NEILL AND COMPANY. 


MDCOOLXIV. 





- as 




M E M I R 



ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 



OF SIB ST Fit. 





J IT N 


STU 


ART, 


SECRETARY 


OF THE SQCIETY 


OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND. 












-AsTrrt^ 





EDINBURGH : 
PEINTED JJY NEILL AND COMPANY 

MDCOOLXIV, 



The substance of the following Memoir was read at the Anni- 
versary Meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in November last. At 
the request of the Council, the paper has been considerably enlarged 
by the introduction of farther selections from Mr Rhind's corres- 
pondence, principally from a series of letters addressed by him to 
two of his friends, the Rev. John Earle, Rector of Swanswick near 
Bath, and Dr J. Barnard Davis, one of the editors of "Crania 
Britannica," which these gentlemen readily placed at my disposal. 

Mr Bremner, the literary executor of Mr Rhind, having put into 
my possession the manuscripts left by his relative, I have made 
various selections from them, which are now printed in the Memoir. 

The portrait of Mr Rhind has been successfully engraved by 

Mr Robert C. Bell, from a photograph taken in 1860, belonging to 

Mr Alexander Kincaid Mackenzie, the brother-in-law of Mr Rhiiul, 

which seems to me to preserve a faithful and pleasing likeness of 

the original, as he appeared in his later years. 

J. s. 
March, 1864. 



M E M I R 

OF 

ALEXANDRE HENRY RHIXD. 



The late Alexander Henry Bhind was the only surviving son of 

Josiah Ehind of Sibster, banker in Wick. He was born on the 
26th July 1833, and during his earlier years pursued his studies 
at the Pnlteneytown Academy, under the tuition of Mr Andrew 
Scott, now Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of 
Aberdeen. He then proceeded to the University of Edinburgh, 
where he became a student in the class of Natural Histoiy in the 
session of 1848-49, and in the class of Natural Philosophy in the 
session of 1849-50 ; but even when at College, his early taste for his- 
torical pursuits displayed itself, and, as he wrote to me many years 
afterwards, he then attended the lectures of Professor Cosmo [nnes 
on Scottish histoiy and antiquities, delivered in the University in 
the winter of 1849-50; "and they appealed" (he writes) "so na- 
turally to my then growing old-world tastes, that I was an unfail- 
ingly regular attendant." 

Some of his common-place books of this period me preserved, 
which begin with notes of College lectures, but soon merge into 
extracts from works on the early history and topography of Scotland, 
< specially of the shire of < 'aithness, with 'let ails of Piets' Houses and 
• ■ain is in his own district. 



A MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

In March 1851 he was occupied in opening a set of remarkable 
cairns at Yarrows, and other localities, in the southern corner of 
the parish of Wick ; and about the same time he translated from 
the German a work on " The National Knowledge of Antiquities in 
Germany, and Notes of a Tour," by J. T. A. Worsaae. 

In the summer of this year he visited the Great Exhibition in 
London, and thereafter proceeded to a tour on the Continent, which 
occupied him for several months. In the course of it he passed 
through the Low Countries, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Saxony, 
Prussia, and Denmark, and visited all the remarkable museums of 
antiquities in these countries. 

My first intercourse with Mr Ehind occurred in the early part of 
1852. He had been made aware of my inquiries for examples of 
sculptured pillar-stones and crosses, and accordingly sent me rub- 
bings of the curious slab at Ulbster, of which a drawing will be 
found in my volume " The Sculptured Stones of Scotland," printed 
for the Spalding Club. The patience and care of Mr Ehind in 
removing the coating of hard impacted vegetable growth which 
covered and obscured the figures on this monument, involving the 
work of several days, were singularly in harmony with the accurate 
habits of research which his maturer years developed, and which 
he carried into all his pursuits. 

In December of this year, he was elected a Fellow of the Society 
of Antiquaries of Scotland, and in the course of the session he pre- 
sented to the Museum two remarkable stone vessels found near 
Wick. In May 1853, he prepared a paper, of which an abstract is 
printed in the Proceedings (vol. i. p. 182), as " an attempt to define 
how far the Cymric encroached upon the Gaelic branch of the early 
Celtic population of North Britain." This paper furnishes abun- 
dant evidence of wide reading and careful independent thought. 

About this time Mr Ehind devoted much attention to the systema- 



MEMOIB OF ALEXANDER Hi:.M:V HIIIND. 

tic examination of a Pict's house at Kettleburn in his native comity, 
carried out by workmen under his own eye and directions. A paper 
appears in the "Archaeological Journal" for 1853, in which -Mi' 
Rhind gave an account of this examination, and in 1854, the whole 
collection of archaeological relics and osteological remains found in 
the Pict's house were presented to our Society with a descriptive 
memoir, which is printed in the " Proceedings," vol. i. p. 264. 

In August 1854, Mr Rhind addressed the following charac- 
teristic letter to the Crystal Palace Company, suggesting to them 
the propriety of erecting models of certain early British remains in 
their grounds at Sydenham : — 

J. Grove, Esq., 
Secretary to the Crystal Palace Co. 

Sibstek, near Wick, August 16, 1854. 

" Sir, — I am not aware whether it has occurred to the Directors of the 
Crystal Palace, that it might be very desirable to include among the con- 
templated additions to its attractions, restorations, or, I should rather say, 
copies of certain primeval British remains, which could not fail to be 
universally instructing, and at the same time highly promotive of the 
advancement of archaeological science. If this suggestion has not already 
presented itself to those officially connected with the undertaking in 
question, I would venture to urge, that it is worthy of consideration ; and 
perhaps you will permit me to state my reasons for believing it to be so. 

" It is true that we may search in vain among the rude antiquities of 
our nun land for structures which have any artistic beauty to recommend 
them, or which could produce the dazzling effect of the restored anti- 
quities of the East; but then the gentlemen interested in the Sydenham 
Palace have wisely shown, as indeed they originally professed, that it is 
their design, not merely to gratify or educate the eye, but also to supply 
suggestive materials for intellectual information. It will not, therefore, 
1 imagine, he an objection to British aboriginal remains, thai in an orna- 
mental point of view they woidd be deficient, since, as practical and 
really attractive instructors, their value would be undoubted. Nor does 
it seem altogether free from anomaly, that the visitors to the "greal 
popular educator," as it has justly been termed, should have every facility 



4 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

for ascertaining Iioav an Assyrian monarch was housed three thousand 
years ago, or for studying the sepulchral customs which prevailed on the 
banks of the Nile more than a millennium before our era, while no means 
whatever are afforded to enable them to form any idea of the manners 
and state of civilisation at those periods of their predecessors on British 
soil — their ancestors it may be. That such means, were they once in 
existence, would be eagerly and extensively taken advantage of, can 
scarcely be questioned ; for even among the most unthinking sightseers — 
much more among those of ordinary intelligence — when the curiosity is 
once excited with respect to past ages, it involuntarily and naturally 
directs itself with special reference to one's native land. Thus many, 
had they only the opportunity, would doubtless acquire sensible and 
rational views on the subject of our national archaeology, in place of pre- 
vious ignorance or erroneous prejudices ; and I feel persuaded, that 
another and very important result would be a more general diffusion of 
a knowledge of the scientific value of archaeological relics, and of the con- 
sequent necessity that exists for their more careful preservation. A more 
efficient vehicle for the promulgation of this truth can scarcely be con- 
ceived than the Crystal Palace, which cannot fail to be visited by people 
of all classes from all parts of the country ; and I do believe that the 
information on this matter which they might there receive, would do 
much to prevent the wanton destruction of aboriginal antiquities, which 
those who have practical opportunities for research are so incessantly 
called upon to deplore. 

" I hesitate to offer any observations respecting the details of the pro- 
posal I have indicated ; but it will be seen that I have been alluding more 
particularly to the erection of fac similes of specimens of the more remark- 
able types of those primeval British remains which are of an architectural or 
structural character. Some models of weapons, implements, utensils, and 
ornaments, might certainly be well introduced for illustrative purposes ; 
but as these smaller relics are already collected, and can be seen else- 
where, it would scarcely be an object to bring together very many copies 
of them at Sydenham. There, as I conceive, attention should be directed 
to that which cannot be attempted in ordinary museums — to the repro- 
duction of those remains which are even more vivid exponents of pri- 
meval manners than weapons or tools, and which are more generally 
appreciable by unscientific beholders. For how much more readily is 
the curiosity satisfied by a sight of the dwelling, than by the mere inspec- 
tion of the rude implements of its occupants ; how much more vague 
are the ideas called up by the arrow-head, the spear, and the sword, 



MEMOIR OB ALEXANDER HENRY BH1ND. 

than by the actual presence of the stronghold which these were used to 
defend; how much more meagre are the teachings of the urn and the 
favourite arms or decorations of the deceased, than of the sepulchre in 
which these were deposited. And we have dwellings still in excellent 
preservation, the most curious of Avhich are perhaps the ' Pict's Houses,' 
hill forts stdl nearly perfect in all their details, cromlechs and chambered 
cairns, which have well resisted the influence of ages, leaving nothing for 
the imagination to supply. To reproduce examples of these and of such 
like (winch, were it found necessary, coidd be effected without much detri- 
ment even in the open air) coidd not involve any extravagant expenditure, 
as the materials and workmanship woidd be of the coarsest kind; and 1 
feel assured, even after making large deductions for my own antiquarian 
predilections, that the outlay would be fully justified by the interest taken 
in its results. I am the more, confirmed in this belief, from having had 
occasion to observe more particularly at Copenhagen, and at the Dublin 
Exhibition, the deep attention which casual visitors, -with no strongly 
developed archaeological tastes, are disposed to bestow on good collections 
even of the minor relics, which, as I have already implied, are not calcu- 
lated to be so popularly significant or attractive as restorations of the 
character I have indicated. Nor would it be the general public alone 
that would benefit by such reproductions, although this, of course, under 
the circumstances, woidd be the primary object, but scientific antiquaries, 
both native and foreign, and especially the latter, would find them of 
very considerable service ; as they would thus have an opportunity of 
examining in detail primeval structures which otherwise they would 
never see except on paper, since it might not be convenient for many of 
them to make pilgrimages to remote districts in Scotland or Ireland, 
where the finest examples of the remains in question are preserved. This 
last consideration is, however, as I have said, of secondary importance, as 
the Directors, I doubt not, desire to make it their first care to provide 
that which shall be popularly available; but even with this end only in 
view, and leaving out of sight the contingent advantages I have pointed 
out, still I would hope that it may be deemed advisable to reproduce at 
least some specimens of our national remains — of only a single dwelling 
and a single tomb — as a means of enabling every one to know something 
of primeval Britain 

'• Conceiving that the Directors of the Crystal Palace Company will 
aol regard as an intrusion any such suggestion as the above, when offered 
from proper motives and with becoming respect, I take the liberty to 
address them through you, and to requesl thai you will be so obliging as 



b MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

to bring under their notice the subject of this letter. — I have the honour 
to be, Sir, yours faithfully." 

Mr Ehind gave evidence of his diligent inquiries into the early 
History of Scotland in an article which appeared in the " Eetrospec- 
tive Eeview" for February 1853, under the title of "Early Scottish 
History and its Exponents." He chose as his text-book the well- 
known "Critical Essay" of Thomas Innes, and the following passage 
contains his opinion of that work : — 



" It is not, of course, our intention to hold up the ' Critical 
an unapproachable model of perfection, though candour must admit that 
few disquisitions of its kind can advantageously be compared with it. 
The section set apart for the elucidation of Scottish history, properly so 
called, is especially deserving of praise, from the comprehensiveness of its 
mode of treatment ; and the chapters allotted to the Picts are also valu- 
able, though ethnologically we decline to recognise them as the standard 
of our faith. After making such an avowal, it may perhaps be expected 
by some that we should enter on the great battle-field of the Pictish con- 
troversy ; but on this occasion, having neither space nor inclination to 
do so, we have carefully and designedly eschewed this exciting subject, 
with the view of confining our observations to the Scots alone. For the 
present, then, let a single parenthetical remark suffice— -namely, that it is 
our matured conviction, after having perused, we may almost say, every 
scrap extant bearing upon the discussion, that, notwithstanding the end- 
less volumes which have been written, the more minute and interesting 
facts of the case have yet to be evoked. Nay, more ; we do not hesitate 
to say, that the most recent investigator of this complicated and somewhat 
mysterious topic, Dr Latham, is — always excepting John Pinkerton — 
farthest from the truth, since he expresses his belief, on most frivolous and 
untenable grounds, that ' the Picts may have been Scandinavians.' " 

In the " London Quarterly Eeview," No. IV. for September 1854, 
another article by Mr Ehind occurs as a Eeview of Worsaae's 
"Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and 
Ireland." This paper furnishes us with Mr Ehind's opinion of the 
nature and amount of the Norse influence in Britain, and especially 
in Scotland, and was noted as remarkable at the time of its appear- 



MKM01K OF ALEXAUDEB llKNKY RHIND. i 

ance, by competent judges, who only came to know of its authorship 
in after days. 

The first decided symptom of pulmonary disease in Mr Ehind was 
manifested in the autumn of 1853, and his health now required him 
to select warmer quarters for the winter than his own northern home 
could furnish. Up to this time he had been able for considerable 
bodily exertion. He enjoyed shooting and boating, and took part in 
the exploration of ancient remains. The immediate change in his 
physical power is expressed in a letter to his friend I)r Davis, 
written from Clifton in April 1854. — " The ascent of a gentle accli- 
vity has now more terrors for me than climbing to a point in the 
Mont Blanc range 10,000 feet above the sea-level had two or three 
years ago." 

As his purpose was to proceed to the Scotch Bar, he meant to have 
attended the law classes at Edinburgh during the winter of 1853-4, 
but he had now to retreat to Clifton. Here he received accounts 
of the death of his elder, and only surviving brother, and soon after 
he was led to abandon his design of studying for the bar. In a letter 
to me written from Clifton, on 7th November 1854, he refers to his 
interest in the prosperity of the Society. " I assure you I will do 
what I can to write something for the Antiquaries, for I am quite 
of your mind that it is a necessary duty to do so on the part of every 
one who professes to take an interest in national antiquities and in 
the Society, which, whatever its shortcomings, must be regarded as 
the representative of them, and must be upheld as such." 

The winter of 1854-5 was partly spent at Ventnor, whence he 
frequently wrote to me, and from which lie .sent a paper printed in 
our "Proceedings," (vol. ii. p. 72) on the " Bronze Swords occa- 
sionally attributed to the Romans." In the course of the same 
season he prepared a paper on "British Primeval Antiquities; 
their Present Treatment and their Peal Claims." 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

This paper after being read to the Society, was printed by Mr 
Ehind as a pamphlet for the public, its main object being to create 
a healthy reverence throughout the country for the remains of 
early times, and to secure their more careful treatment afterwards. 
With the same object he afterwards wrote a paper " On the Present 
Condition of the Monuments of Egypt and Nubia," which is printed 
in the " Archaeological Journal " for 1856. 

In announcing to me the completion of this paper on British 
Antiquities, he thus wrote of its purport (Ventnor, 9th February 
1855)— 

" It relates to the neglect and danger to which national primeval relics 
are exposed. For some time I have been inquiring into this subject, and 
have devoted to it a good deal of trouble, and shall have to expend still 
more, particularly in examining additional blue books and other parlia- 
mentary papers, which a friend in the House of Commons has promised to 
send me. At first I intended embodying my materials in the form of a 
review article, but I then thought that the subject was likely to receive 
much more attention if brought before a society, one of whose cardinal 
duties is to see after the interests of archaeological remains. That being 
done, and the society (if it thoright proper) being induced to take some 
active step, I would be disposed to go to the expense # of printing the 
paper afterwards as a pamphlet for more general circulation, in the ex- 
pectation that it might be productive of some good. I say this because, 
feeling convinced that the success of archaeology depends upon the better 
conservation of antiquarian remains, I have abeady exerted myself in 
some degree to that end, and intend continuing to do so, in so far as it 
may be in my power. I am quite sure that you will feel with me" in 
this matter." 

In the year 1854, Mr Ehind wrote an article for the " Ulster 
Journal of Archaeology," (vol. ii. p. 100) in which he recorded the 
"Eesults of Excavations in Sepulchral Cairns in the North of 
Scotland, Identical in Internal Design with the Great Chambered 
Tumuli on the Banks of the Boyne in Ireland." These excavations 
had been executed at various times under Mr Ehind's personal 



MEMOER OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 'J 

superintendence. From such investigations lie always anticipated 
useful results, and at a later period he expressed his opinion on the 
general subject in the following terms : — 

" But however valuable such repositories as those alluded to may be, 
and however important we may regard the aggregation of antiquarian 
relics, it should always be kept prominently in mind, that the field from 
which primeval archeology has most to hope for is the careful survey and 
excavation of early remains. To me it seems that the special encourage- 
ment, furtherance, and undertaking of such explorations, should be the 
prime function of bodies incorporated with a view to archaeological study ; 
and particularly of that body in England whose position, means, and re- 
presentative character at once warrant and demand exertion — the Society 
of Antiquaries of London. Researches of this kind are peculiarly the 
work for associated energy and conjoined resources, which can best ac- 
complish them extensively and systematically. They are also the essential 
pabulum, the necessary element of that scientific progress in ethnological 
inquiry, which alone imparts dignity, utility, and solid value to antiquarian 
pursuits ; and therefore, if societies existing for the interests of these 
should fail to direct a due proportion of their efforts to clear the way for 
an onward march, they may survive as centres of barren co-operation, but 
their tendency will be to sink into mere embodiments of elaborate tri- 
viality, retarding, as cumherers of the ground, the true advancement of 
the science which they would profess to have in charge." 1 

The following passages regarding the excavations in question, 
and some of the conclusions deducible from them, occur in a letter 
to Dr Davis, written from Clifton on the 2d June 1854 : — 

" If health, however, permit me to carry on many of the excavations in 
the North which I project, I am not without hopes of securing some 
tolerable specimens [of Crania.] But this, as I have said, entirely depends, 
I regret, on the state of my health, for it is impossible, I have found, to 
carry on such researches satisfactorily without personal superintendence ; 
and such superintendence, when the object is in a remote district, involves 
considerable exertion and exposure 

" I certainly am disposed at present to regard the Cairns as somewhat 

1 British Archeology, its Progress and Demands. Preface, p. 8. Lond. L868 



10 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

older than the " Picts' Houses/' but not much so ; for, apart from other 
considerations, there is a degree of similarity in the method in which they 
have both been built, that I conceive marks them as being nearly syn- 
chronous (if I may so use the word). This similarity is more appreciable 
to one engaged in the excavation of them, than it could be made by de- 
scription ; but it certainly exists, only the workmanship in the Cairns is 
somewhat ruder, and therefore, perhaps, of slightly more ancient date. 
Any such opinion, however, is liable to a little modification as facts accu- 
mulate ; but, reasoning from present grounds, I think it is not far wrong. 
" When you ask the question, ' Must we not refer both (cairns and 
' Picts' houses') to the Picts V I am certainly quite disposed to answer in 
the affirmative, with only one apparent petitio princijpii (which might, 
however, be made good), namely, that those remains belong, not to an Allo- 
phylian race, but to the earliest Celtic population of North Britain. I 
confess that this question is not at present perhaps capable of complete 
solution ; but assuming the fact to be as I have stated it, then I believe 
the memorials in question to be Pictish, because, after as minute an exa- 
mination of the disputed subject as I am capable of instituting, I feel per- 
suaded that the northern Picts (at least) were the descendants of the early 
Gael. But although this is my opinion, and I presume is yours, from 
your question, still it is not universal, as there are many who believe that 
the Picts were not Gael at all, but an invading Gothic people, who took 
possession of the territory they held about the Christian era, according to 
some, and a century or two later, according to others. Although all 
parties would probably agree that the remains in question are early Celtic 
(overlooking for the present the Allophylian theory), there would not ne- 
cessarily be the same unanimity as to their being strictly Pictish ; but of 
all this, I dare say, you are well aware, and I only allude to the subject 
because you asked my opinion." 

In March 1855, Mr Rhind submitted a statement to Lord 
Duncan, at that time the Scotch Lord of the Treasury, with the 
view of obtaining official directions that all primeval vestiges 
should be carefully laid clown on the Ordnance map of Scot- 
land, which would then " exhibit an additional phase of usefulness 
by furnishing, as it were, an easily-consulted index, of immense 
service in archeeological inquiries, which would show at a glance 
where certain relics are located, or what remains exist in specific 



MEMOIB OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 11 

districts, — a species of information which at present is perfectlj 
unattainable, except by minute and generally impracticable personal 
resi arch." 

It was to follow up this attempt, and very much in consequence 
of suggestions made to me by Mr Rhind, that the Society ol Anti- 
quaries resolved to bring the subject under the notice of the Michael- 
mas Comity meetings of this year all over Scotland, with the view 
of obtaining a general and influential expression of opinion in favour 
of the proposed addition to the objects of the Ordnance Survey. 
He took a warm and direct interest in forwarding this movement of 
the Society ; and when he was in London in October 1855, on the 
point of starting for Egypt, he wrote to me : — 

" I got the copies of the circular which you sent to me, as also three 
others from Mr Robertson ; and I communicated with friends who would 
see that a responsive resolution was proposed, and the matter ventilated 
in Ross, Caitlmess, Sutherland, Orkney, Berwick, Inverness, Perth, Kin- 
cardine, and one or two other shires. On my requesting the Kilkenny 
Society to adopt the same course with regard to the landowners of the 
south-east of Ireland, they readily agreed to do so ; and in England, too, 
I hope sometliing by-and-by will be done, so that the movement may he 
general, and therefore more effective." 

The winter of 1855-6 was spent in Egypt, in the course of which 
Mr Rhind began those researches in the Tombs at Thebes, which 
were to bear such remarkable fruits. I need hardly say that the 
numerous objects of interest, discovered by him at the cost of great 
labour and expense (including a set of bilingual papyri and a painted 
bier, both supposed to be unique), were all sent to our National 
Museum. In a letter, written to me from Thebes on 24th January 
1856, the following passage occurs : — 

" It is my earnest desire to add to our museum such a series of Egypl [ax 
antiquities as will form a fair comparative representation of the archseo 
l'\<j\ of the extraordinary people who lay so near the primary fountains of 
civilisation. With this view, 1 shall gladly purchase where I can, objects 



12 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

suitable for my purpose, which, any of the peasantry around may possess, 
with the view of supplementing where the results of my own excavations 
may be wanting." 

However much engrossed Mr Ehind might be in his own special 
pursuits, he was at all times ready to take an interest in and to 
forward the researches of friends who applied to him for assistance. 

Writing to Dr Davis, from Thebes, on 8th Feb. 1856, regarding his 
efforts to procure modern skulls for him in Egypt, he says : — " For 
this you may be very sure that I shall keep an outlook, as I hold it 
to be selfish, if one can help those at home, especially friends, to lose 
an opportunity of doing so, when they themselves may not easily 
have any other means of coming at what they want." 

In the. month of November 1856, Mr Ehind published a little 
volume entitled " Egypt ; its Climate, Character, and Eesources as 
a Winter Eesort." Its object is thus stated in the preface : — 

" I have been led to prepare this book, conceiving that the modest 
position which it assumes to occupy required to be filled up, and that it 
was almost a duty to attempt to do so. Although I am not without hope 
that its contents may have some interest for those desirous only to in- 
crease their acquaintance with the realities of eastern travel, the whole 
design has acquired its colour from having been undertaken chiefly with 
a view to those who have to think of countries with reference to the 
sanative influence of their climates." 

The volume contained not only the results of the author's expe- 
rience, but also thermometrical notes contributed by Lord Haddo 
(late Earl of Aberdeen), Sir Gardener Wilkinson, and others. 

Mr Ehind spent part of the summer of 1856 at Sibster, and in 
the course of it resumed the excavation of some of the remains in 
his neighbourhood. The result was communicated to the Society in a 
paper entitled " Notes of Excavations of Tumuli in Caithness made 
in the summer of 1856 " printed in the " Proceedings," vol. ii. p. 372. 
In it he makes the following statements : — 



MEMOIB OB ALEXANDEB HENBY RHIND. L3 

" It is scarcely necessary to notice, in so cursory a manner, that these 
four tumuli, in the simplicity of the interments, -without the not unusual 
accompaniments of primeval hurials, find many coincidences, particularly 
in the north, and add to a large aggregate of facts of a like nature A 
careful survey of these has for some time seemed to me an inquiry of 
decided importance, which would prohahly involve a necessity for 
material modification of the'eurrent classifications, and limit the applica- 
bility of the psychological deductions which have commonly attributed 
to primeval ages certain feelings on the subject of futurity, without 
sufficient reference to the special divergences indicated by observed data, 
-which, to say the least, "will hardly verify the exactness of such a uni- 
versal scheme of primeval religion. I cannot obtrude this subject here, 
especially as I hope shortly to develop, in a more appropriate and ex- 
tended form, some of the views to which a consideration of this matter 
is calculated to lead." 

In July of this year a Congress of the Archaeological Institute 
was held in Edinburgh. Mr Ehind took a warm interest in all 
the preliminary arrangements for it; and Mr Way assures me that his 
exertions largely contributed to its success. 

At this meeting, Mr Ehind read a paper " On Megalithic Remains 
in Malta," which affords a specimen of his careful system of induc- 
tion, and his cautious refusal to adopt conclusions from merely 
traditional premises. He also read a communication " On the 
History of Systematic Classification of Primeval Eelics," in which 
he pointed out that the idea of arranging by fixed progressive periods 
had not originated with northern archaeologists, but had been dis- 
cussed in Scotland long before it took shape in Scandinavia. Both 
papers are printed in the " Archasological Journal " for 1856. 

The winter of 1856-7 was again spent in Egypt, when Mr Ehind 
resumed the excavations among the tombs at Thebes which he had 
commenced in the previous season. In a letter to Dr Davis, from 
CJ-oorneh, Thebes, dated 9th January 1857, Mr Rhind thus describes 
his arrangements : — 

" Having stated to our consul-general, Mr Bruce, when at Cairo, the 



14 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

objects I had in view, lie very kindly applied for and obtained for me a 
firman from the viceroy. Armed with this precious document, under the 
seal of Said Pacha, enjoining all the governors throughout Egypt to aid 
me in whatever I may require, and permitting me to excavate wherever 
I like in the whole country, I possess here, where I have taken up my 
position, a sort of irresponsible power. I certainly shall not abuse it ; 
and I do need it, for I have a shocking set of scoundrels to deal with. 
I have already forty men at work at one point and twenty at another. 
At the former I was cheered yesterday by the discovery of eight mummy 
cases, and to-day of six more. They were not within a tomb, but give 
evidence, I hope, of the proximity of one, and I shall diligently persevere 
in search of it, as, from the position, it would probably be interesting. 
On Monday I intend to have fifty more men in the valley of the splendid 
tombs of the kings. I have several times gone diligently over the ground, 
and I have marked off several spots that seem promising. ... I have 
also originated an excavation on the Island of Elephantine, 150 miles up 
the river, which Lord Henry Scott and Mr Stobart have undertaken to 
superintend for me, sending for me should it promise favourably." 

The exertions thus undergone by Mr Bhind seem to have been 
greater than his strength could bear ; for in writing to Dr Davis 
from Palermo on 8th May 1857, he states : — 

" In the early months of spring I was myself by no means so well as 
I could have wished, partly I believe in consequence of over exertion, 
which it was difficult for the time to avoid. This compelled me to re- 
linquish some of my designs, and one in particular, which I greatly regret, 
a series of excavations, in what we call the "Western Valley, which, from 
its remote situation, would have involved an amount of fatigue to reach 
it daily on horseback for the purpose of supervision, that after a very 
unmistakeable warning I did not dare to think of undertaking. I kept 
to work vigorously however at various points nearer home, and at one of 
these in particular I met with very considerable success. My reward 
there was a large and remarkable tomb with its deposit in untouched 
security." 

In this letter, Mr Ehind adds : — 

" After leaving Thebes I had intended pitching my tent for another 
month, as last year, in the shadow of the Pyramids of Geezeh, but I 
found that the season was rather far advanced. Accordingly I sailed 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENBY KIIIM'. 15 

from Alexandria on the 4th of April for Malta, and thence here, where I 
have now been established for more than a fortnight enjoying myself 
thoroughly. A more delicious place I have never seen. The eye may 
be almost constantly intoxicated with the exquisite landscape ; and all 
around the city the air is redolent of the perfumes of endless varieties of 
flowers, orange blossoms, and the other products of a most luxuriant ve- 
getation. Man is the sole saddening element in the prospect, both from 
what he too often appears to he in point of comfort, and from what we 
know he is in point of liberty. It had been my design to go on to 
Naples and Eome, but every thing here is so attractive that I shall not 
tear myself away until it is necessary to turn homewards." 

The summer of 1857 was partly spent at Sibster, from which place 
he wrote to me on 14th September, a letter, containing the following 
interesting remarks on the Bound Towers or Burghs which are 
peculiar to the Northern Parts of Scotland. 

" I shall answer your last question [about burghs] first, as to whether 
I have bestowed much attention on the subject. Whenever and wherever 
I could, I have not failed to note everything that came in my way 
respecting the burghs, and I have also made them a subject of special 
inquiry. I know a large number of facts connected with them, but I 
do not feel hi a condition to hazard as yet definite results. I have 
never been able to hear of any of these peculiar memorials except in the 
northern division of Scotland, the Orkney, Shetland, and Western Isles ; 
and I have made it a matter of very wide search in the antiquarian topo- 
graphical literature of England and Ireland to find some trace of them 
and of the allied ' Picts' houses,' of which I have been disposed to regard 
them as the outgrowth or development. I have never been able to find 
any definite allusion to their existence in Ireland, although I have par- 
tii-iihifhj loolci'i] for such, because I saw reason to expect that they might 
be in that country for the following reason. We have in Scotland a re- 
markable class of chambered cairns. In the north I have been a great 
deal among these and Picts' houses, and I have been led to perceive in 
the structural portions of both a certain conformity which I could not 
exactly make clear to you in a short note, but which would warrant a 
belief that both were the products of the same architectural development 
The burgh, if I am right in Avhat I have said, would follow the same 
analogy. Now I have, inquirer! in vain as yet for either a Pict's house 



16 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

or a burgh in Ireland ; but chambered cairns like ours are there, such as 
those at New Grange, and one in Kilkenny, although I cannot make out 
that they are very numerous. Still their presence has to me always in- 
duced the expectation of at least the correlative Pict's house being at 
some time discovered. If the towers Dr Simpson has seen are identical 
with Dundornadilla, I hope he has taken a note of their structure and 
locality. If they are merely circular buildings, without possessing the 
double concentric walls, they will still be interesting, but I do not think 
they would be burghs. In answer to your question, I would say that 
this is the distinguishing mark of the burgh. Simple circular buildings 
may be found in any country, and are perhaps not uncommon products of 
early mediaeval architecture ; but even were such structures found in 
Scotland, which I do not know, or at the moment remember, I should 
require to be well assured of their archaic uncementecl construction, and 
to judge somewhat from their position before classifying them as burghs." 

On 8th October 1857, he wrote Dr Davis from Edinburgh — 

' I am delighted to see that your cranial treasures have attained such 
valuable extent ; and when you allude to what I have been able to do 
to swell them, you estimate much more highly than I do the little aid it 
has been in my power to give. Most gladly would I ere now have put 
you in possession of some specimens to supply your deficiency of modern 

Celtic types, but I have hitherto been completely baffled I have 

no reasonable doubt, however, that were I ever to be restored to a degree 
of health, which I cannot conceal from myself it would be too sanguine 
to expect, such as would enable me to undertake researches in the northern 
counties of the extent which I earnestly desire, then, being personally 
present in Highland localities, I might confidently hope to procure at 
the same time what you so much desire. Sometimes recollections of this 
kind tempt me to be querulous and repining, but I should not forget 
that with much to bemoan I have much to be thankful for." 

A few days after this letter was written, Mr Bhind was prostrated 
by an unexpected attack of illness, which confined him for a long 
time, and reduced him to such a state of weakness, that although Dr 
Davis, who had come to Scotland on a tour, was in the same hotel with 
him in Edinburgh, he was unable to see him. Writing to Dr Davis 
from Malaga, on 11th December 185 7, he thus describes his illness : — 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 17 

" The attack of haemoptysis which prostrated me in Edinburgh was 
most unexpected, and very considerable. I was just about going out to 
church on the morning of the Indian fast-day, when, without any apparent 
proximate cause that 1 could remember, except it were bending a little 
before, I felt blood flow into my chest, and I lost perhaps a tea-cupful. 

I have now been settled down for a fortnight, and the change 

lias already done me a world of good. I have gained strength; appetite 
become vigorous ; chest sensations apparently subsiding into their former 

character After two winters spent in Egypt, I do not 

as yet find this an unsatisfactory change for the climate of the Nile. It 
is several degrees cooler certainly, probably 9 or 1 in the middle of the. 
day, but is still sufficiently warm for any one who would be content with 
the sunniest days of our own August." 

At the Anniversary Meeting of the Society, on St Andrew's Day 
1857, Mr Pdiind was elected an Honorary Member. 

While at Malaga, in the spring of 1858, Mr Rhind heard of his 
father's death, an event which was thus communicated to Dr Davis 
in a letter from Algiers, written on the 26th March of this year : — 

" Early in February I had a great grief, in the intelligence (until quite 
previously), entirely unexpected, of the death of a most affectionate father, 
whose whole being was devoted to me. The affliction was the more 
severe, that the stroke, by snapping the last tie of near relationship, leaves 
me as it were alone. Feeling that a change from a place saddened by so 
gloomy an association would be desirable, we left Malaga about the middle 
of this month, and crossed over to Algeria." 

To those acquainted with Mr Bhind's warm, loving nature, the 
depth of such a wound may be estimated. Some of the thoughts 
which sustained him under his feelings of desolation, we may gather 
from the following verses, which I find copied into one of his 
commonplace books : — 

" WHO IS ALONE? 1 
How heavily the path of life 
Is trod by him who walks alone ; 
Who hears not on his dreary way 
Affection's sweet and cheering tone ; 
1 Hymns and Poems for the Sick and Suffering, p. 186, 



18 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

Alone although his heart should bound 
With love to all things great and fair, 
They love not him, — there is not one 
His sorrow or his joy to share. 
***** 

Who is alone, if God be nigh ? 
Who shall repine at loss of friends, 
While he has One of boundless power, 
Whose constant kindness never ends ? — 
Whose presence felt enhances joy, 
Whose love can stop each flowing tear, 
And cause, upon the darkest cloud, 
The pledge of mercy to appear." 

In the letter to Dr Davis last quoted, Mr Bhind thus refers to the 
question of Treasure Trove, in the adjustment of which he felt great 
interest : — 

" Before the last occurrence diverted my thoughts, and when, in point 
of strength, I had so far recovered as to be able to undertake a little work, 
I prepared what I had for some time promised, an Exposition of the Law 
of Treasure Trove for the Scottish Antiquaries." 

This paper was read to the Society, and is noticed in the Pro- 
ceedings (vol. iii. p. 76). It was printed as a pamphlet, with a 
preface, dated Malaga, 15th January 1858, under the title of " The 
Law of Treasure Trove — How can it be best adapted to accomplish 
useful results 1 " 

In a letter to me from Algiers, dated 30th March 1858, he thus 
writes of his new quarters : — 

" I need not say I have very great satisfaction in noting any particulars 
that may be of use to our friend Innes, as regards spring quarters. For 
myself, I have been very greatly pleased with this place, in point of 
climate, since I have been here. The air is singularly soft and balmy, 
without, however, being humid or relaxing ; and as March and April 
have the reputation of being normally of this character here, I do not 
know any place where these months could be spent more agreeably. As 
to earlier spring and winter, there is a certain proportion of rain and 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIXD. 19 

cliangeable weather, as everywhere on the Mediterranean seaboard, but 
less, so far as I can judge, than at any point on the northern shores, 
excepting only Malaga. By the end of April or early in May, the heat, 
although, it is said, not oppressive, becomes so considerable as to indicate 
removal to those "who, contemplating spending the summer in our home 
climate, do not wish to accustom themselves to a high temperature. By 
the way, one thing is probably worth mentioning, that local medical 
opinion seems to be, that the ah* here being somewhat stimulant, does not 
always suit those who are nervously excitable, and has a tendency to arouse 
irritation in that direction. 

" In point of other attractions, the country around Algiers is of its 
kind the most beautiful I ever saw — ravines and slopes, infinitely diver- 
sified by the most luxuriant vegetation. These, too, are in all directions 
penetrated by excellent roads, and so the drives and points of view are 
very various. 

" The town itself is bustling and lively — too much so to my taste. 
The hotels are good, and their scale of charges about the same as usually 
prevails in France. For a strong man there are plenty of expeditions on 
all sides by steamer or diligence, and much, if not always of special, of 
adecpiate interest to see, in Soman sites, the outline of the country, the 
Kabyles, and so on. If Innes thinks of coming here this season, and con- 
ceives there is anything I can do for him beforehand, I shall have the 
greatest pleasure in being of any use to him." 

In the beginning of May, Mr Khind left Algiers for the south of 
France, where he lingered for some weeks, Avignon being his head 
quarters. Part of the summer and autumn was spent at Sibster. 
On 23d August 1858, he writes to Dr Davis from this place " a 
hurried line respecting the Sutherland (Dimrobin) skull as you 
wish it," in which he recapitulates his reasons, formerly stated to 
myself, for believing the deposit to be Scandinavian : — ■ 

" 1. The sculptured stones (of which one was used as a cap-stone) being 
native and peculiar, were not likely to be regarded by roving strangers, 
who were inimical also to the indigenous population ; and they (the 
Norsemen) might naturally make use of a convenieni slat). 

" 2. The situation not far from the shore gives probability to a Scan 
dinavian origin. 

b2 



20 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

" 3. The grave, in its structure of slab-stones and general character, 
corresponds with an interment which I knew in Caithness, of undoubted 
Norse origin, as the usual two shell-shaped brooches were present. 

"4. The grave seemed to indicate a date almost, if not quite, contem- 
poraneous with the native use of the sculptured stones ; and so a native 
population wouid hardly use one for an uncontemplated purpose. 

"I think the objection to your line of argument would be — (1) The 
difficulty of drawing too strict a line between the symbols on the pre- 
Christian and the Christian stones ; (2) and chiefly, The Norsemen are 
much more likely to have buried in this fashion as pagans, and not as 
Christians. Their paganism in the North of Scotland is of much later 
date by several centuries than the introduction of Christianity among the 
native tribes. Add to which this deposit is prima fade (though not 
necssarily) pagan, as it had at least one accompaniment, a corroded 
(apparently) ferrule of iron for the haft, perhaps of spear or pike." 

In September, Mr Khind came southwards. I was not in Edin- 
burgh when he passed through, but he wrote to me afterwards of his 
endeavours to assist Mr Hamilton, to whom was entrusted the 
construction of the cases for the National Museum, by giving him all 
the facts suggested by his experience, and by introducing him to the 
officers of the British Museum, who were most conversant with the 
subject. In October, Mr Khind took up his quarters at Hyeres in 
the South of France, from which he wrote to me, on 28th October — 

" I am here establishing myself rather nearer home than usual — at all 
events, for the winter — with the intention of moving down the Spanish 
coast, or into Italy, in January, when the harsh spring winds may be an- 
ticipated. At a first start, I am quite charmed with this place. The 
views are exquisite ; the vegetation almost richer than Italian ; the hotel 
where I am staying exceedingly comfortable ; and the climate, it is to be 
hoped, enjoyable." 

In this letter he recurs to the subject of Treasure Trove, to the 
settlement of which he wished to give a fresh impulse, and adds, — 
" The time was thought opportune to bring together the two 
pamphlets on British Antiquities and Treasure Trove, and I have 
set them out in a volume with a new preface, the sentiments of which 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENUY UIIIND. 21 

1 hope you will approve." This preface, from which 1 have already 
quoted (p. 9), is dated from Clifton, 12th October 1858. 

In a letter to Dr Davis, written from Hyeres on 2Gth December 
1858, he says : — 

■• T am much pleased to have your opinion of the photograph of the 
Maltese skull Your attribution of it to an African type coincides with 
that of certain Italian physicists, Orioli of Bologna, being, 1 think, one. 
Its history is this, — It was found with crumbling bones in a species of 
crypt, in the Megalithic remains at Hagar Kim, in Malta, — a papei on 
which I read at the Congress of the Archaeological Institute at Edinburgh 
in 1856. The specialties of these curious vestiges, and generally the 
primeval archaeology of the Mediterranean coasts and islands, oilers a 
somewhat important field of research, which I always try to keep in view. 
I am just now finishing a long paper of about sixty MS. pages on one 
branch of the subject, ' Megalithic Vestiges in North Africa and their 
place in Primeval Archaeology.' " 

The paper just referred to is printed in " Archreologia, vol. xxwiii 
p. 252. 

In the beginning of February 1859, Mr Rhine! left Hyeres for 
Nice, whence he proceeded by Genoa and Leghorn to Rome, which 
he reached just before the commencement of the Carnival. Writing 
to me from Rome on 2d March, he says : — 

" I need not tell you of the Archaeological profusion here. It is over- 
powering in cmantity and dazzling in kind. During the past week I have 
examined most of the ruins of ancient Rome. The art galleries and the 
churches I have not yet entered upon. "With regard to these, however, 
I intend, on this occasion, only to familiarize myself with the most pro 
minent exemplars ; and my time I propose chiefly to devote to the study 
of the Etruscan antiquities, with respect to which, I want to lay a good 
basement in my memory for comparative purposes." 

Leaving Home on the last day of March, Mr Rhind spent a few 
days in Naples, and then feeling the need of repose after the excite- 
ment of sight-seeing, took up his abode for some weeks in the 
beautiful Island of Capri. "The change," he writes to Dr Davis, 



22 MEMOIK OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

" was most pleasant and useful, allowing an opportunity for digest- 
ing, so to say, the crowded impressions of two tolerably laborious 
months." 

The revolutionary events then occurring in that country compelled 
Mr Ehind to alter his plans and led him to hasten his return to 
England without visiting the Balearic Islands, which he was 
" anxious to see for the sake of their curious remains — the Talyots." 
On his return he resumed his residence at Clifton. 

At this time a Committee of our. Society was engaged in deter- 
mining the principles on which the arrangement of the National 
Museum was to proceed. Mr Ehind, as I have said, had at various 
times visited, and carefully examined, the chief Museums of Anti- 
quities in Europe. He had done this with a definite object and 
purpose, and as I was naturally desirous of obtaining the result of 
his experience at the time when we were about to fix the future 
arrangement of our own collection, he was so good as embody his 
views in the following " Memorandum on the Arrangement of the 
National Museum of Scottish Antiquities" : — 

" With regard to the classification of an Archeeological Museum such as 
ours, there are, I think, at least two points which may form an axiomatic 
basis to start from. 

" The first is, that a collection calculated to teach inductively or deduc- 
tively, should be arranged with respect to its instructive capabilities, and 
not merely in the manner most convenient for generic adjustment or 
reference, as for example books in a library. 

" The second is, that such a collection being the embodiment, or rather 
the data, of scientific inquiries not fully developed, speculative, and pro- 
gressive, should not, as far as possible, be classified according to any 
conclusion that may be doubtful, and thus cramped into a mere illustra- 
tion of a foregone formula, instead of being allowed, by a quasi-natural 
juxta-position of the objects, to evolve whatever shades of meaning they 
may bear. 

" If these be the essentials of classification which we should endeavour 
to approach, we must fail to approve of either of the two systems with 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RIIIND. 23 

which (as adopted on a large scale) we are familiar. The one is that 
embraced by the Royal Irish Academy, which may be called what I have 
termed a mere generic adjustment, whereby, in consequence of arrange- 
ment, simply according to material (wood, bone, stone, &c.) which may 
belong to any age, race or country, the function of teaching is almost 
altogether abrogated, and what little precise knowledge has been hardly 
won of primeval ages, is nearly enwrapped in its original chaos. The 
other is the method of the three processional periods which is commonly 
described as Danish, which is in use at Copenhagen, at Schwerin, under 
Herr Lisch, who, I believe, first employed it, and not to mention other 
collections, is practically the plan followed in the British room of the 
British Museum. To it arises the objection under the second head, that 
its teaching is not unequivocal, and is admitted by native investigators 
themselves not to be of universal application, even in the three Scandi- 
navian countries where it is most strongly maintained, while, with regard 
to Britain, the sum of our experience up to this point will not at all 
warrant such unqualified precision. 

" Further, in both the systems there is the radical defect, that either, 
if rigidly carried out, involves the dismemberment of sepulchral deposits 
or other finds, which, it being one of the peculiarities in Britain, consist 
often of objects of diverse material, and which, precisely for this reason, 
constitute in their integrity our most valuable data. 

" On these grounds, I conceive that a blending of the two systems, or 
rather following an arrangement springing naturally from the relics them- 
selves, and, above all, from the circumstances in which they have been 
found, would be at once more scientifically just and practically useful. 
In such arrangement, I would admit but one inevitable generalization, 
even that to be confronted by a scheme of constant correctives of simple 
application. This generalization would merely be a recognition of the 
relative inferiority and superiority of artistic appliances and products, 
a gradation inferentially related to the lapse of time — as the broad teaching 
of history and experience is progress in those matters — but a gradation 
not necessarily chronometrical, and the precise significance of which it 
would be the object of this corrective system gradually to unfold, rather 
than preliminarily to assume. 

" A short outline of the practical details I should propose to follow will 
be more explanatory than an exposition of abstract principles. 

" Supposing the classification were to be commenced as you enter the 
Museum, I should begin by arranging in the first wall case to the right, 
all the stone weapons and implements now in our possession, not form- 



24 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RH1ND. 

ing part of heterogeneous finds. In the same case I would place those 
urns, patera? and ornaments, &c, of a similarly isolated character, the 
like of which, experience or analogy may teach us, has been found in 
conjunction with stone relics in this country. In a portion of this case 
duly defined, and headed " Illustrative," as opposed to " Native," I 
should exhibit corresponding ohjects from other countries, including Irish 
relics ; but not English relics, which, for obvious ethnographical reasons, 
it would not at this stage be necessary to dissociate from Scottish. In 
continuation of this case, I would have a space for early mixed and inde- 
terminate objects, and then proceed on the same plan with the metallic 
and correlative relics, taking care, as before, to be guided, if possible, by 
facts, or at all events, by analogy and judgment, in determining what 
vestiges are to be associated. 

"Then, as to the practical commentary on this stringing together or quasi- 
classification of what may be called the waifs or separate objects, I would 
have in the Avail cases immediately opposite, or in some instances in cases 
on the floor, any group in its integrity which constituted any one sepul- 
chral deposit, or the contents of any one primeval dwelling ; a description 
of archaeological material of great value, and not unlikely to accumulate 
from the increasing care of excavators. Already we have several. Ac- 
companying these, I would have, whenever drawings exist, illustrations of 
the remains, and even positions in which they were discovered — represen- 
tations which might be merely the engravings in use — to illustrate descrip- 
tive papers, original sketches, or photographic copies of these on a small 
scale, now so easily and cheaply produced. Models also of the vestiges 
which have yielded the relics, and, indeed, of all others of a corresponding 
character, are also a species of treasure which should find their place here, 
and the accumulation of which ought to receive every attention : nor 
would I limit this mode of illustration to the groups. In every instance, 
where similar material exists for the elucidation of what I have termed 
the isolated objects, in the opposite wall-cases, I would likewise back 
them with such exponents of their history. For both the groups and the 
separate objects, I would also have another common rule — that each 
should bear a plainly legible statement of at least the place and description 
of monument in which it was found, along with a precise reference to 
volume and page of the " original source," whenever the circumstances 
under which it was discovered have been recorded, whether in MS. in the 
archives of the Society, or in print in the Society's Proceedings, or else- 
where. 

" It is thus by blending and reflecting, one against the other, the intima- 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENHY RHIND. 25 

tions of single objects — relics in their primitive groups, and monuments, 
iiU in their mutual co-relation, — that we shall Lest extract their fullest 
signification, and at the same time guard against going beyond it. 

" As I have here chiefly to deal with pre-historic vestiges, I need 
hardly go farther, and it is unnecessaiy to add, that at the conclusion of 
a sequence such as the foregoing notes indicate, we should come to works 
bearing evidence of direct Roman influence. Of a later period still, we 
have as yet in Scotland recovered very few relics corresponding in date to 
the Anglo-Saxon antiquities so numerous in England, and this, in fact, 
is one of the dimmest vistas in Scottish archaeology. At the outskirts, 
and at the close of this epoch, we come to Scoto-Irish products — the con- 
tents of a few Scandinavian graves on our coasts, distinguished generally 
by their shell-shaped brooches, and hordes like the valuable addition from 
Orkney winch the Museum has lately received. Then antiquarian in- 
quiry, already begun to find outlet in other paths, is bereft almost entirely 
of much of its older field, and its materials and products, at once more 
full and more precise, fall readily, with only occasional difficulties, into 
chronological line. 

" I have thus hurriedly endeavoured to sketch the general features of 
the conception I have formed of a scientific archaeological collection. After 
acquaintance with nearly all the museums in Europe, the impression which 
remains with me is, that the foregoing outline represents the idea of what 
one would wish a National assemblage of relics to be, as a medium where- 
by to arrive readily, practical^, and in an unbiassed shape, at an estimate 
of the archaeological characteristics of any given country. It need scarcely 
be added that such an arrangement implies neither particular difficulty 
nor undue extravagance of space. It would reqviire care and judgment, 
but no more trouble than such an object legitimately demands ; and in 
its minuter developments such as the supplying of titles, illustrations, and 
references, the work coidd be gradually completed not necessarily before 
but after the Museum is opened." 

A. Henry Rhind. 
Clifton, llth June 1859. 

Tn the month of July 1859, Mr Rhind came to Edinburgh, where 
he resided during that month and part of August. In the end of 
duly he attended the meeting of the Archaeological Institute at 
Carlisle where I met him. He only remained for a couple of da\>, 
and feeling unable for the fatigue of country excursions, he confined 



26 MEMOIK OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

himself to an examination of the local museum of the Institute, and 
to attendance in the Sections at the reading of the more remarkable 
papers. 

At a later period of the season he arranged for a lease of the 
beautiful mansion of Down House near Bristol, of which, on 10th 
October, he thus wrote to me at Malvern, where I was at the time — 

" I have been getting settled in my new abode, into which I moved a 
week ago. Although I am pretty well accustomed to moving my tent, 
yet it is a sad tax on time and other occupations shaking into place, when 
the result promises to be something like permanency. When it is over, 
however, and my penates are fixed, I fancy I may count upon having no 
other flitting in the full sense of the term until the last." 

He was at the same time meditating his usual winter flight, but 
amid all his distractions, he kept in view the arrangement of the 
Museum at Edinburgh. In the same letter he writes me — 

" I have heard from Mr M'Culloch [the keeper of the Museum] several 
times, and I write as fully as I can in answer to his questions. You 
know, however, the difficulty of realising the positions of absent things, 
and of tracing in and by letters, transpositions which a glance might set 
at rest. So far as I make out he has been getting on nicely; but when 
you get home, do look in and keep him, as far as possible, to principles, 
which, with the best will in the world, one is apt to overlook in a natural, 
and, indeed, so far commendable anxiety to arrange for 4he eye and for 
facility of cataloguing." 

It was Mr Ehind's wish to have been present at the meeting of 
the British Association which took place at Aberdeen in September 
of this year : he took especial interest in the proceedings of the 
Ethnological Section, and the relative Archaeological Museum 
formed under the auspices of Mr Charles E. Dalrymple and other 
members of a local committee. But as he afterwards wrote to Dr 
Davis from Boulogne on 7th November, he was unable to enjoy the 
pleasure : " To me it was a decided privation to have been obliged 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RIIIND. 27 

to forego the meeting at Aberdeen, as besides the other inducements, 
I had counted upon meeting so many friends together who are not 
easily brought within reach otherwise." In this letter he informed 
Dr Davis that he had been detained at Boulogne from the effects of a 
bad cold caught during the passage across, which proved unexpectedly 
boisterous, by exposure from which he could find no shelter, in conse- 
quence of the crowd on board and the miserably uncomfortable con- 
struction of the steamer. He however felt so much better as to 
propose to begin his journey to Hyeres on the following day. On 
that day, however, he had a recurrence of his old complaint, which 
completely prostrated him, and detained him at Boulogne for a 
month before he gathered even a feeble amount of strength. " You 
will readily believe," he afterwards wrote to Dr Davis from Hyeres 
on 3d March 1860, " that under these circumstances a journey across 
France in mid winter was rather an undertaking, but there was 
nothing else to be done, and by care and arrangement I accomplished 
it without detriment." In the same letter he "writes — 

" I have no doubt you have read Darwin's remarkable book on the 
" Origin of Species." I had it sent here with a parcel of others, and have 
just finished it. Viewed antagonistically or not, it is a great perfor- 
mance, from the evident and continuous thought with which it has been 
elaborated, and the free range which it evinces over a vast area of facts. 
Without as yet having been able to give it full consideration, I am dis- 
posed to think that he has done more than has ever been done formerly 
to show cause for believing that species are not necessarily fixed elemental 
points. But how far, and to what extent, the power and principle of 
mutability has been operative, is the question. Whether an inflexible 
logic, from specials to the widest generals, is to bear clown all before it ; 
and whether an analogy, not necessarily of universal application, must be 
held to swamp all difficulties, is the issue. I should like to see this phase 
discussed by the professed physiologists and zoologists ; and I dare say 
this will come presently, but hitherto they seem to have been rather hold- 
ing aloof." 

In a letter to me from Hyeres, dated 27th February of this year, 



"28 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

are the following passages on " The Picts/' and " The Sculptured 
Stones of Scotland," which are well worth preserving : — 

" As to the special point you mention, defining Galloway in the tenth 
century Terra Pictorum, I do not, like you, remember any authority 
applicable, otherwise than inferentially. But with regard to the actual 
ethnologic position of the Celtic population which we seem to find there 
later, that could only be dealt with as part of the general question 
affecting the Picts. And first of all, what force is to be given to the 
name Pict 1 If we are to use it merely in a political sense (so to say) as 
describing the nation we find in East and North East Scotland, then it 
would have no more ethnographic significance than for example the terms 
Mercian or East Anglian in South Britain, and would fail to be a palpable 
distinction. But if we are to make it a test of race, and of generic im- 
port, we have the old problem in all its complexity. I myself greatly 
doubt the accuracy of a rigid application. I am satisfied as to the generic 
Kelticism of the Picts, but not that they were exclusively or specially 
Gaelic, or specially Cymric. While, then, Bede lays down their boundaries 
to the South expressly enough, in his day, as a nation, we must not 
necessarily ipso facto conclude that the race element of Pietism was at 
all times, or at any time, restricted to the north of his line, and to the ex- 
clusion of Ireland — where, the more I used to think of it, the more I was 
convinced that there was not an uniformity in its Keltism. I should 
greatly like to see developed the line of inquiry which you point to, and 
which the new glimpses of Pictish institutions have opened up- — namely, 
a minute comparison with the state of matters in Ireland and South 
Britain. 

" As to the Stones, a section of what you mention is very much Avhat 
I have been endeavouring to keep in view. With reference to a general 
idea, in demanding which you rather drive me into a corner, I would be 
disposed to formulate it somewhat thus : — 

"1. The crude figures in their simplicity (those we term symbols) have 
not hitherto been met with — at all events similarly grouped elsewhere. 

" 2. The ornamentation, — interlaced knot work, and such like — was 
common in Eoman work, particularly of late time. 

"3. Certain of the figures, such as some of the men and horses, have a 
strong resemblance to debased Eoman work. To give one or two ana- 
logies : — on the fronts of Christian sarcophagi from the catacombs at 
Eome, and in incidental has reliefs often merely built into modern walls 
in Italy, I have noted groups of considerable correspondence with the best 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY KIIINK 29 

of ours ; such as men with kilt -like tunics, horses of the same lull, rounded 
contour, ridden by men without stirrups and with pointed toes, a chariol 
with occupants like one al Meigle. 

"As to the first (the symbols) I should not fee] quite warranted to 
speculate whence they originated, although, judging by analogy and by tin 
epoch to which they seem referrible, I should suspecl thai they sprung 
from some untraceable foreign germs, rather than consider that they were 
of pure native creation. But that they were a specially native develop- 
//<< /// seems clear from their number and local restriction. The second 
and third, again, I should be inclined to look upon as almost entirely 
adopted and imitative products. If this view be correct, it should exercise 
an influence on what may be termed the archaeological reading of the 
third (the figures, &c), by making it doubtful whether they are intended 
to represent the contemporary dress or customs of the country. 

" On the general ethnical questions hinging on the positive or negative 
affirmation of an early native art-growth, I could not here enter. 

" I am now in correspondence with Italy on the subject of some of 
those reliefs and sarcophagi to which I alluded ; but it is difficidt to accom- 
plish exactly what one wants. In a fortnight or so a friend of mine is 
going there, and I think I may be able to get some help through him. 
If you chance to have any spare copies of individual stones on thin paper, 
and would send me three, being of examples typically representative of 
respectively the symbols, the ornamenting knot-work, and the pictorial 
figures, they might be very useful in enabling me to send clear instruc- 
tions by my friend." 

In his next letter to me, dated 4th April, lie writes : — 

" Your letter, and the packet with the lithographs of the stones which 
you so practically replied to me by sending, arrived safely a fortnight ago 
and I lost no time in employing the latter in the manner I had in view. 
I have not yet heard from Koine as to the results of the instructions 1 
gave for a draughtsman's work, nor, indeed, do I expect to do so for some 
little time. 

" The report of your last meeting shows a most thriving state of things. 
Accurate drawings and descriptions, like that by Captain Thomas of the 
houses in Harris, are of the highest interest, and I echo your wish that 
they (particularly the plans and drawings) were more numerous. 1 am 
very glad to be able to send you with this, I suppose in time for your 
next meeting, a paper, the materials for wliieli have at various times cost 



30 MEMOIK OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

me much trouble in the gathering. It forms part of the diggings in the 
general archaeology of the Old World, which I try to keep following out, 
without being very hopeful, I am sad to confess it, that I shall ever he 
able to complete my scheme." 

The paper thus referred to was " On the Use of Bronze and Iron 
in Ancient Egypt, with reference to General Archaeology." An 
abstract of it is printed in our Proceedings, vol. in. p. 464. 

About the middle of April Mr Khind began his homeward journey, 
making Msmes his headquarters for two or three weeks, " as there 
is a good deal of antiquarian interest there, and close by at Aries," 
reaching England early in June. On the 15th of this month he 
wrote Dr Davis on the subject of a series of ethnological queries, 
which that gentleman proposed to put into the hands of competent 
observers in different localities : — 

" In the matter of the ' queries,' of course, I shall be most glad to be of 
any use to you ; but when you and Stuart talk of my opinion on the sub- 
ject as being of any value, I am only certain that you both very decidedly 
overestimate it. I think the form of the questions is well calculated to 
get at the facts you want ; but I frankly confess to you that I should put 
little or no reliance for purposes of sound deduction, upon the answers in 
the mass which you are likely to receive. JSTobody will know better than 
yourself how rare is the capacity for scientific observation, even in matters 
where direct tangible testimony is alone involved, without the necessity of 
the exercise of judgment. But in the case of your queries, where the ob- 
server has to state general results (as in 2, 3, and 6), from a comparative 
discrimination of many (say twenty) diverse units, I think the task is one 
which, if well executed, would itself require a judicious and rational ethno- 
loger. Again, supposing that individual observers were tolerably capable, 
there would almost necessarily be sufficient difference in their respective 
mental processes of weighing evidence, to make the aggregate product an 
accretion of ?miiniforni items. In fact, it seems to me that a series of 
observations, such as those in question, to be of full practical value, would 
require to be made by one practised eye, guided by one standard of elimi- 
nation — in short, it is an affair in which, from the delicacy of the process, 
as applied to minute ethnology, everything depends on the observer and 
his judicial ability. I would strongly, therefore, incline to the view that, 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RIIIND. 31 

if you contemplate founding on a series of inquiries of the nature indicated 
in the 'queries,' it would be a very great matter if you could, in your own 
person, make the few local inspections that would he needed. Previously 
selecting your points, and provided with introductions, a tour of four or 
six weeks would, I believe, accomplish the work satisfactorily, and in such 
a manner that, if you came to build, you coidd rely upon the bricks." 

In the month of August 1860 I had the pleasure of visiting Mr 
Ehind at Ms residence near Bristol. He was then busy with his 
book on Thebes, and in such health as enabled him to enjoy the 
society of Ms friends, and to take daily drives in his carriage. The 
season, however, was on the whole wet and gloomy, and he, in com- 
pany with Ms friend Mr Palmer, who had been his companion at 
Hyeres, sailed for Madeira in the month of October. 

While at Madeira he executed Ms settlements on the 1st January 
1861. 

Writing to Mr Earle from Madeira, on 10th April 1861, he 
says— 

•' I have got on exceedingly well through the whole season — at least 
keeping my ground, and working with some degree of steadiness. My 
Egyptian volume is now almost quite clone ; and when I reach England, 
I hope, after a good revisal, to be ready to go to press. The only thing 
I feel sure about it is, that it will not to anybody, or intrinsically, repre- 
sent the amount of labour it has cost me. We are looking forward to 
flight, and have arranged the mode. At one time o\ir plan was to make 
for the Canary Islands, and thence by the coast of Africa to the south of 
Spain ; but a hitch as to the steamboats has obliged us to give up this 
on the present occasion, although I do so reluctantly, as I am anxious to 
learn something of the Guanche antiquities at Tenerifle. Wo have now 
fixed to sail direct to England about the 18th of May ; and before the end 
of that month I hope to be at home, where I shall speedily expect towel- 
come you, to get the light of your countenance, and the benefit nf vmn 
experience, as to the killed shrubs, before going to see the results of your 
labours in your own vineyard." 

In the end of May he reached his residence at Down House, where 



32 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

he spent the summer. In the beginning of September Mr Palmer 
came to visit him with the view of concerting plans for again 
spending the ensuing winter together in a warmer climate. On the 
. second day after his arrival Mr Palmer was unexpectedly seized by 
haemorrhage of the lungs. Writing to Mr Earle on the 11th Sept., 
Mr Ehind says — 

" Alas ! alas ! there is anything in view but a visit to you this week. 
Poor Palmer came to me this day week looking wretchedly ill ; and 
the night after but one he appeared at my bedside (at half-past two in the 
morning) coughing violently from haemorrhage, and begging for help. 
Happily I had the needful appliances at hand. I got him to bed, and sat 
with Mm until we got a surgeon, before whose arrival the bleeding 
ceased." 

Mr Palmer's death was thus announced to Mr Earle on the 20th 
September : — " My last letter would prepare you for our poor friend's 
illness taking the worst turn. And so it has been. He went calmly 
to his rest yesterday morning." 

Mr Ehind again returned to Madeira for the winter of 1862. He 
thus writes to Mr Earle on 3d January 1862 — 

" I have settled down into the kind of fossil life which I followed (and 
which the nature of the place compels one to follow) last year. I am oc- 
cupying the same rooms, meeting very many of the same people, revolving 
in my morning rides in the same narrow circles, which the bounding hills 
prescribe, and altogether feeling as if I had never left the island. There 
is a lamentable want of variety and life in this exile — that is undeniable. 
Indoors, of course, one has one's occupations ; but the want of interesting 
objects, and, to some extent, of interesting people outside, makes what 
ought to be the pleasantest part of the day, often the least so. In the 
house in which I am staying, and which has some seventeen guests, we 
are, as to personnel, in some respects worse, in some respects better off, than 
last year. Of course the larger number of the people are simply of nega- 
tive characteristics ; and if we have none who are actually treasures, 
neither have we any — and it is something to say of a miscellaneous house- 
hold — that are positively obnoxious. One -half are Germans ; and as I 
have a general liking for their race, I am glad of the interim, and live. 



MEMOIR OF A.LEXAHDEU HENRY IMIIND. 33 

"Two of our .set are very ,u r ,,o>l specimens in various ways ; but being 
Northerns (Sleswig men), and rather out of the way of the literary activity 
of Germany, they are not such ' full men 1 — to use Bacon's phras* — as their 
countrymen of corresponding position and education sometimes are." " I 
am looking forward with some degree of pleasure to my spring move. 
My plan is to sail for Teneriffe at the first of April, to spend three weeks 
or a month there, looking up the ( ruanche antiquities ; and then to make 
for Seville, by way of Cadiz, at the beginning of May. I should hope to 
spend a month pleasantly in and about Seville, and then to return to Eng- 
land, either by Lisbon or Gibraltar." 

About six weeks later in the season (15th February) Mr Rhind 
wrote to me from Madeira. The following passage in his letter shows 
how he kindled up at any plan for elucidating native antiquities : — 

" I saw in an Aberdeen paper, which was sent to me by the last mail, 
a report of your Spalding Club meeting. The account of what had been 
accomplished, and what was contemplated, seemed very satisfactory. The 
plan which you seem yet to keep partly in abeyance, I think is well 
worthy of every consideration — 1 mean following up the Sculptured Stones 
by a somewhat similar exemplification of the historical architecture of the 
north-east of Scotland. There never is likely to be such an opportunity 
as that offered by the united effort of a Club like the Spalding, for con- 
structing a corpus of the historico-ethnographical materials of the northern 
counties — a work which, as well as appealing to our national feelings, must 
have a somewhat unexpected scientilic value, from the evidence to be 
afforded as to the character of development in a comparatively isolated 
region. . The mediaeval chartulary, and similar social illustrations, are one 
part of such a corpus ; the sculptured stones notably another ; the house- 
hold, castellated, and ecclesiastical architecture would be another \ and 1 
have for some time thought of suggesting to you one more, and yel an 
earlier link, to be taken up when the sculptured stones were finished, 
and illustrated by the same process of collocation and embodiment of 
thoroughly trustworthy facts and illustrations. What 1 mean is, a series 
of representations of a large number of the prominent and typical early 
vestiges of the northern counties — the bill forts, the circlea and other 
ortholithic erections, the eirde houses and Picts' Houses, the cairns and 
barrows, and the relies of stone, metal, and day found in connection with 
them. The interest of such an exemplification of the primeval Btate of 

c 



34 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

our northern home, we can readily picture ; and to produce such a monu- 
ment, fairly adjusted and apportioned, is a work such as a hody like the 
Spalding Club is well calculated to accomplish, and it is worthy of an 
effort to achieve. To prevent its too exclusively absorbing the funds of 
the Club, I should think there would he little difficidty in organising an 
adequate auxiliary fund, to he subscribed to by volunteers, of whom I 
would gladly be one. I do hope you will think of this as favourably as 
I do, and keep the matter in view." 

He adds — 

" I am just correcting the last sheets of my Theban book. What re- 
ception the volume may meet with I can hardly guess ; but at any rate I 
have not spared labour upon it. To find that it should meet with some 
degree of success would naturally, of course, be pleasant, after first toiling 
to gather the materials for it in Egypt, and then grinding them into shape 
Avith an amount of labour which it is perhaps as well the result should 
not show. In Edinburgh I hope it will find some readers, who may 
already have been interested in the relics in the Museum, which part of 
it describes." 

This volume, on which Mr Bhind expended so much thought and 
labour, was soon afterwards published with the title, " Thebes, its 
Tombs and their Tenants Ancient and Present, including a Eecord of 
Excavations in the Necropolis." It contains eleven chapters, the first 
of which is devoted to the general history of Thebes ; the second de- 
scribes the Necropolis as one of the most remarkable in the world; 
the third gives the result of former sepulchral researches ; the fourth 
describes the unrifled tomb of a Theban dignitary and its contents, 
portions of which were of an unusual character, and others unique ; 
the fifth gives an account of a burial-place of the poor ; the sixth 
records excavations among tombs of the kings, and of various grades ; 
the seventh is devoted to the theories explanatory of Egyptian sepul- 
ture ; the eighth to the sepulchral evidence of early metallurgic 
practice ; the ninth points out how the demand for Egyptian relics 
has been supplied, and its influence on the condition of the monu- 



MEMOIR OF A.LEXANDER IIKXKY I:IIIM>. 60 

ments ; the tenth furnishes an account of the present tenants of the 
tombs; and the eleventh continues the account of these tenants 
and of their rulers. The volume is illustrated by plates of the more 
remarkable objects. 

In the preface Mr Rhind explains the delay which had occurred 
in the appearance of the volume; one reason for which was, his 
hope of being able to collect a farther series of sepulchral details in 
other parts of the country. 

" But the chief cause of the delay has been that, believing any W< ak 
intended for publication to be entitled to at least such advantages as time 
and care may give, the demand for both in this case has been increased 
by the breaches in continuous progress involved in the circumstances of a 
lengthened annual absence abroad. Even now I have had to correct the 
proofs of two-thirds of these sheets about fifteen hundred miles from 
England." 

Mr Rhind is here silent on the subject of interruptions arising 
from serious illnesses, which at times reduced him to an extreme 
state of weakness, and permanently disabled him from anything 
beyond a restricted amount of daily exertion. 

On the 5th May Mr Rhind wrote to me from Gibraltar — 

"I spent rather more than three weeks in various parts of the island 
of Teneriffe, but chiefly in the beautiful valley of Orotava, to which Hum- 
boldt gave the palm for beauty, even in comparison with all the scenery 
of the Cordilleras, which he had traversed. I much enjoyed my sojourn 
there, and in Teneriffe generally. The weather was magnificent, and t la- 
climate generally seems to promise so well for a winter, that 1 am at 
present minded to return there next year. The facilities of communica 
tion with Europe form one considerable inducement, there being sis or 
seven steamers every month. The drawback is the very indifferenl accom 
modation. Another motive to go back is, to investigate a little more fully 
the relics of the Guanches, the ancient population which the Spaniards 
found in possession, at the conquest, tOO years ago. Their condition 
offers some interesting analogies with that of the primeval races of 



36 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

Europe, &c. ; and what 1 have already been able to learn on the subject, 
makes me desirous to have some opportunity of knowing more. To leave 
Teneriffe, I took advantage of a mercantile steamer that was to make a 
long detour, which promised some novelty. We touched first at another 
of the Canaries, La Palma, and then at another, Lanzarote — the first 
mountainous and of considerable beauty ; the last also mountainous, but 
arid from want of water. Our next point was Mogador, on the coast of 
Morocco, where we lay two days. This town has all the curious oriental 
characteristics ; but being comparatively new, and having been built as a 
commercial depot, it wants much of the picturesqueness of the ancient 
Muslim cities. From Mogador we coasted northwards, looking in at 
three other Barbary towns — Mazagan, Darel Baees, and Tangier — and 
arriving here on Friday night, after a pleasant voyage of nine days. In 
four and twenty hours I hope to be again under way, as my object is to 
reach Seville on the 8th, and to stay there until the end of the month. 
About the beginning of the second week in June, I hope to be at home." 

Among Mr Ehind's papers I found a very careful account of 
Teneriffe, with minute details of its products and resources. It is 
a mere fragment, however, and does not touch on the antiquities of 
the island, his observations on these being probably reserved till 
after the second visit which he projected. 

Mr Ehind resumed his residence at Down House, where he spent 
the summer of 1862. In the autumn he was again prostrated by an 
attack of illness, of which he wrote to me from Clifton on the 20th 
September. He had arranged to part with his lease of Down House 
at this time, with the intention of selecting for next season a more 
sheltered residence in the same neighbourhood. In the letter just 
referred to he writes — 

" I have decided to turn my face to Egypt again for the coming winter. 
I sail for Malta from Southampton on the 4th of next month. Early in 
November I hope to be once more on the Nile. In spring, according to 
my present plans, I make for Corfu ; and, if strength permits, I intend 
to get about among the Greek islands for six or eight weeks, with an eye 
to early vestiges." 

Before he left England, Mr Ehind executed a codicil to his settle- 



MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY KIIIND. 37 

ment, by which he transferred from the University of Edinburgh to 
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland his endowment of a Pro- 
fessorship of Archaeology. His reasons are fully stated in that 
document, which is printed in the Appendix to this Memoir. 

Mr Eliind reached Egypt in safety, and speedily began a series of 
systematic observations on the Nile and its deposits. His purpose 
is thus expressed in a paper found among his notes, which may have 
been intended as a preface to the volume, which he meant to pre- 
pare under the title of " The Nile Valley in Eelation to Chronology." 

" This work will, with other materials, contain the result of observa- 
tions made during a voyage devoted to tracing the operations of the 
Nile for 1000 miles of its course from the second Cataract to the sea. 
Among the facts embodied are the depth of water ; rate of current ; 
amount of sediment ; constituents of alluvium and of sand ; these, and 
other conditions being classified with reference to the respective points in 
the river's course. Side by side with such data, showing tire Nile's 
mode of action, will be given the various evidences according to their 
locality of what it has accomplished. Among such evidences are measure- 
ments indicating the position of the ancient monuments in relation to the 
river and the alluvium, and traces of fluviatile action on or near the 
mountains of the valley. It will be shown from terrace marks in the 
hills, and the presence of alluvial deposits and river shells at levels high 
above the present water range, that in its earlier career the Nile was a 
destructive stream, wearing out its bed where its subsequent work has been 
to build it up. 

" In reviewing the changes which have occurred during the historical 
period, it will be shown with reference to Lower Nubia and Upper Egypt, 
that the facts require a different explanation from either of the two most 
current hypotheses, viz. : — the assumed scooping out of the bed of the 
river between Semneh and Assouan, or the bursting of a barrier at the 
rocks of Silsilis. As to Lower Egypt, including the Delta, the subject of 
the rate of alluvial deposit will be investigated and the value examined 
of the proofs it may afford as to the antiquity of man's presence." 

The following letter to Mr Earle, written from La Majolica, on 
the Lake of Como, on the 8th of .lime L863, is valuable, from its pre- 



38 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

.serving a detailed account of Mr Khind's proceedings during the 
previous winter : — 

" I do not doubt that, from some of my Clifton friends, you will have 
long ago learned that there has heen only too good reason why I have 
not replied to your letter, which came to me in Egypt just at the very 
time of my overthrow. I longed to write to you, hut I was unwilling to 
use another's hand, and I feel that you will forgive me for delaying until 
I could myself, as it were, speak to you face to face, if it be hut a word 
or two. 

" I spent the winter on the Nile pleasantly, and as to health improv- 
ingly. But I could not resist getting involved in interesting work, which 
I could not always keep within proper hounds. The main part of my 
time was given to investigating the operations of the river and the growth 
of the alluvium, with reference to the monuments. I began and carried 
out the work systematically for 1000 miles of the river's course, and had 
brought my notes and collections into such form, that I had communi- 
cated with the Longmans to announce a volume on ' The Nile Valley in 
relation to Chronology.' When I reached Cairo, I fear I was more dili- 
gent mentally and bodily than a due calculation of contingencies war- • 
ranted ; and one or two detrimental causes having fallen upon me un- 
towardly together, I was prostrated by a sharp attack of haemorrhage from 
the lung. I had a weary confinement at Cairo — another at Alexandria. 
I have been reduced and enfeebled miserably. But yet the necessities of 
escaping from the heat of the south obliged me to start first for Corfu, 
which did not at all suit me, and then to journey on until I could halt at 
this beautiful lake. A week's quiet here has done me some good ; but my 
exhausted condition of frame, I cannot but see, leaves it doubtful whether 
the turn of the balance shall be upwards or down. Guided as it will be 
by the same hand, it will be for me to accept trustfully whatever result 
the Father bestows. 

" In a few days more I hope to make a start to cross the Alps, probably 
by the Spliigen, and to journey, if I am able, to England by sIoav stages, 
arriving about the end of the month. 

" By the way, I had another piece of work in the Avinter, which, if it 
please God that we meet, I should like to have your help with, as it is 
in your special line of country. I made a vocabulary, and endeavoured 
to disentangle the grammar of two Nubian dialects, which till now have 
wanted such exposition. In process of the work I came upon several, 
and even important facts. 



MEMOIB OF AIiEXANDER HENKY KHIXb. .".'. I 

" But, alas! who shall say whether these, and the results of my Nile 
labours, shall uot now return again to chaos. At present I cannot even 
think consecutively of, much less work at either." 

A letter to me from the .same place, written oh the 5th June, 
gives much the same account of himself as that just quoted, bu1 
with rather less detail. One passage in it may be quoted, to show 
how warmly he clung to the recollection of old friends. 

" In turning over the stranger's book, I saw that limes spent some time 
in this house last summer. It reminds me to beg you to remember un- 
to him, and to Eobertson. My Cain's doom, I fear, is nearly fatal to my 
retaining a place in the recollection of friends." 

He adds — 

" I had not closed this an hour, when a messenger from Coma broughl 
me a packet of letters, including yours of the 1st. I feel much your kind 
remembrance and sympathy. I have not said much about myself in this 
letter ; but you avUI infer that my condition hangs, as it were, in a balance, 
and the turn may be to either side. It is for me to bow to the will of 
the Father, whether His hand shall lead into the sunshine or into the 
valley of the shadow." 

Mr Ehind's friends could not but be alarmed at such accounts of 
his health, but he had so often been raised up from a state of great 
prostration in previous times that hope was not extinguished. 

The next accounts, however, brought the intelligence that the 
end had come, and that the feeble flicker of life had now been 
extinguished. It was an end serene and beautiful, — in complete 
unison witli the life which preceded it. He literally " fell asleep." 
The circumstances are detailed in the following letter from Mr 
I {hind's servant, James Fisher, written to Mr Earlo, from Zurich 
on the 3d of July : — 

" You will, I know, be very sony to hear thai poor Mr Hhind is 
no more; he died sleeping during the night. STesterdaj he took a 



•10 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

drive, but the heat was so great that he suffered much from it, and 
complained of being very tired and fatigued when we got back ; and 
so he determined to go early to bed, and, as he had had a very bad 
night the previous one, he thought he should be able to sleep better, 
feeling so tired. At half-past ten I found he was sleeping com- 
fortably. I had to give him some milk, if he awoke during the night, 
but, as he did not move, I still considered him to be sleeping. I 
looked at him several times this morning without going near him, 
thinking I would not wake him ; but at last I stepped quietly up 
to the bedside, and, to my great horror, found he had ceased to 
breathe. He must have died without the least struggle — he had 
not moved his head from the pillow. 

" I believe he has written to you since he was first attacked with 
hgemoptysis at Cairo on the 30th of March. Since then he has never 
got much stronger ; and although from a three weeks' stay on the 
Lake of Como he got a very little better, he got worse again by the 
four days' journey from there to here." 

Mr Ehind's body was brought from Zurich, and interred in the 
family burying-ground in the parish churchyard of Wick, on the 
13th of July. 

Shortly before the execution of his settlements, in January 1861, 
Mr Khind left a letter to his executors, dated 30th November 1860, 
in which he gave instructions for the completion of his work on the 
Tombs at Thebes, in the event of his own death before he should 
have been able to bring it out. He also directed them, in that 
event, to provide funds for the completion of a volume, containing 
Fac-similes of two remarkable Bilingual Papyri found by him at 
Thebes, then in progress, under the charge of Dr Birch, keeper of 
Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum. This volume was all 
but finished at the time of his death, and has since been issued with 
the following title, " Fac-similes of Two Papyri found in a Tomb at 



MEMOIB OF ALEXANDER HENRY KIIIND. 41 

Thebes, with a Translation by Samuel Birch, LL.l >., &c. ; and an 
Account of their Discovery, by A. Henry Rhind, Esq., F.S.A., &c. 
Lund. 1863." 

The notes of Mr Rhind's observations and soundings of the Nik', 
during the early part of 1863, were found among his papers after his 
death ; but it did not appear that he had completed any part of the 
volume, of which these were to form the groundwork. While, 
therefore, these notes could not be printed as a whole, I have thought 
it right to give in the Appendix extracts containing his observations 
on the deposits and current of the Nile at Thebes and Memphis, not 
merely as presenting a remarkable picture of his energetic character 
and active mind, but as evidences of that thoroughness and patience 
in the pursuit of truth which characterised all his labours, and 
which, now animated him to encounter this long-sustained inquiry 
at a time of great bodily weakness. 

One passage in his observations at Memphis appears very remark- 
able, not only as a token of his continued appreciation of the value 
of excavations on historical sites, but also as a testimony to the 
extent of still unexplored ground in Egypt. 

" Deep excavations at Memphis might therefore be very important, as 
well in a historical as a physical point of view. But, in truth, through- 
out all Egypt it may be said, that all that has as yet been done in the 
way of excavation is little more than mere scratching, and the vastnesa of 
the mine makes us wonder whether it will ever be thoroughly explored." 

It will have been seen that thoroughness was the predominating 
feature of his character, and that it entered into all his pursuits. 
The study of antiquities with Mr Rhind was a very different (lung 
from the mere gratification of a taste; whether in the Valley of the 
Nile, or among the moors of his native Caithness, his search was 
always for authentic facts and objects, which he reckoned of value 



42 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

only iii their relation to the history of man's progress ; and while 
he had every facility and temptation to form a private Museum for 
himself, he, from the first, subordinated all his inquiries to public 
ends, and placed every object which he could discover or acquire 
in a public collection, where classification and accessibility might 
render them of real and permanent value. Ever since Mr Ehind 
became a Member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, he has 
devoted his energies and resources to further its objects and secure 
its permanency. There has been no important step in its progress 
during the last ten years, in which I cannot trace his influence more 
or less directly. He was often prostrated by attacks of severe 
illness, but the earliest of his returning powers were devoted to the 
furtherance of some work in which the progress of Archaeology and 
the position of the Society were involved ; and while Mr Ehind 
contributed much to its prosperity in his lifetime, the well-considered 
bequests with which he has enriched it, show the hearty regard for 
its welfare which he maintained to the last. From these it will be 
seen, that he has left to the Society his valuable library, which, 
after the elimination (suggested by himself,) of a class of works of 
a miscellaneous character, not bearing on the objects of the Society, 
will still amount to above 1600 volumes, some of them of great rarity 
and value. He has left to it a sum of L.400, " to be expended on 
practical archaeological excavations in the north-eastern portion of 
Scotland, where the remains are mostly unknown to the general 
student, are often in good preservation, and, from ethnographical 
reasons, are likely to afford important information." He gives to 
the Society the copywright of his work, " Thebes, its Tombs and 
their Tenants," and after providing for the foundation and endow- 
ment of an institution at Wick for the industrial training of young 
women from certain parishes in the county of Caithness; the founda- 
tion of two Scholarships in the University of Edinburgh, and many 



MEMOIB OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 43 

other bequests of a private character, he has left the residue of his 
estate of Sibster for the endowment of a Professor or Lecturer on 
Archaeology in connection with this Society, and has committed its 
management to the Council, with mam practical directions and 
suggestions, which show how well the subject had been previousl) 
considered by him. The last bequest may ultimately yield a sum 
of about L.7000, but is not available during the lifetime of Mr 
Bremner, to whom the liferent right of Sibster is left. 

It has been a great solace to me to gather up these memorials of 
our departed friend ; but I would not have felt it right to intrude 
them at such length on the Society if it had not given me the 
opportunity of preserving many of Mr Rhind's observations and 
opinions on archaeological points, which are of a more general and 
enduring interest than the mere utterances of private friendship. 
From the feelings which have been expressed to me, I believe thai 
the members would have felt regret if some such record of the life 
of one, who has proved so great a benefactor to the Society, had 
not been preserved, and I cannot doubt, that those who succeed us 
will he glad to know something of one whose benefactions will bear 
fruit so long as the Society lasts. 

In looking back to the short and bright career of Mr Rhind, it is 
instructive to observe how much earnest and laborious work he was 
able to achieve. At the time of his death he had not attained his 
thirtieth year, and during the portion of his life in which he carried 
on his historical pursuits, his health was at all times precarious, and 
often prostrated by severe attacks of illness. Instead, however, of 
resigning himself to the solaces often necessary, and always capti- 
vating to invalids, but which tend rather to enervate than to brace 
to any great exertion, Mr Rhind pursued his studies with an equable 
and unbroken ardour — resuming the thread where il had been broken 
by an attack of illness, and gathering from every country, whithi r 



44 MEMOIR OF ALEXANDER HENRY RHIND. 

the varying necessities of health carried him, fresh materials fur 
observation and study. 

Wherever he went Mr Khind acquired new friends. To all, his 
sweetness and unselfishness, his warm and sympathetic nature, could 
not but be attractive, while to those who could appreciate them, the 
treasures of his active and-well stored mind formed an additional 
tie and charm. 

A remarkable feature of Mr Ehind's character was his unvarying- 
cheerfulness. He had many alarming illnesses, but he never fretted 
or became impatient, although for the time he had to abandon some 
engrossing pursuit. He carried on his labours under a constant 
sense of his precarious tenure of life, but was never disheartened by 
it — eager and hopeful while engaged in his favourite pursuits, but 
implicitly trustful and resigned when warned that he must abandon 
them. To his unruffled calmness in every contingency we doubtless 
owe the prolongation of his days, and the many works crowded into 
a little space, for he seemed to realize the poet's words. 

Not enjoyment and not sorrow 
Is our destined end or way, 
But to act, that each to-morrow 
Find us further than to-day. 

While, therefore, we cannot but mourn the early removal of such 
a friend and associate as Mr Ehind, we mingle with our sorrow 
admiration of his noble and unselfish character, and cherish as a 
precious bequest the example of his bright and earnest career. 

JOHN STUART. 



APPENDIX 



THE NILE VALLEY IN RELATION TO CHRONOLOGY. 

The following extracts from Mr Rhind's MSS., contain his observations 
and soundings on the Nile at Thebes and Memphis : — 

" Thebes, 5th February (1863.) — The soundings to-day across the river, 
abreast of the temple of Luxor E. 19. 19. 24. 27. 27. 22. 20. 1G. 10. 10. 8. 
W. Here comes an island and another channel which contains water to 
middle of January. 

" The extreme height of the alluvium, or indeed mound above water 
to-day at the Quay, at south-west corner of temple of Luxor, 20 
feet. The pavement of the temple 2*6 below this; therefore 17*6 above 
water. 

"Examined the Shekh (11th February) whose duty it is to note the 
rise of the river. The appointment, like most others, has been hereditary, 
and lias been long in his family. He himself a man apparently 63 or 65. 
In the Quay beneath the temple of Luxor, there is a projecting stone, 
which, in measuring the height of the waters, is reckoned as being 16 
drah; that is, theoretically, 16 drah above the lowest Nile, and from all 
memory has been so held. 1 From this point, therefore, the Shekh begins 

1 It would seem, however, that there must he some inaccuracy in this, for, as the 
facts on the opposito page show, the stone counted 17 drah was 1() feci from the 
surface of the water, and 17 drah is as nearly as may he ;!'_'. Now the dei peal 
soundings on tho 5th in the channel, being 27 feet, the 10 feet up U> the 17 ilnih 
point hcing added, gives 37. So that if tho Shekh's measure starts from low Nile, 



46 APPENDIX. 

to count, and each tier of stone in the quay thereafter is counted as a 
drah, to which the breadth nearly approximates, namely, about 22 J 
inches. 1 Two tiers of stones, above that counted 16 drah, only now 
remain, some of the upper ones (two or three) having within a few years 
been removed ; on measuring from that counted 1 7 drah to the surface of 
the water to-day, I found it 1 feet above. According to the Shekh, the 
Nile rose this (i.e. 1862) year 2 Of 2 drah. This, calculated from the 
above data, would make it to have been within 1 foot 4 inches of the 
level of the pavement of the temple. The very high Nile of 1861 was 
accounted 22f drah, or about 3 '9 higher, which would and did flood 
the temple by more than 2 feet. On making an excavation at this corner 
of the temple, I found that the foundation being upon hard impacted 
alluvium, went down about 8 feet 3 below the level of the pavement. 
This excavation showed large stones laid regularly at right angles to the 
wall, and stretching out about 8 feet. At the end of them were some 
broken fragments of sculptured blocks and others, so that this had pro- 
bably been part of a building, like a stairs or communication made when 
the quay was constructed, which is not more than about 50 feet from the 
temple. 

" Shekh Yusuf (he of the water) stated further, that such a Nile as 
this year is considered fair. But 2 1 drah is necessary to be a good Nile, 
Neither of these figures, however, cover all the cultivable land, and about 
22 or more is necessary for that. In 1861 the whole was inundated, 
but he had only four times in his life seen this ; in the year (of the 

(ISIS) (1S30) (1840) (18G2 ? 1) 

Hegira) 1233—1245—1256—1278. He has known Niles of 18 and 
1 9 drah, and has seen ten or twelve years or more at different times, when 
none, or almost none, of the land was covered. In fact the inundations 
which naturally command all the alluvium, are here rare. These re- 
marks, derived from Shekh Yusuf s information, it will be observed, 
relate to the Luxor side. 

" The set of the current is on and towards the Luxor side. Its rate, 
about 80 yards from the bank, was (on 16th February) 100 feet in 22", 

it gives only 5 feet as the then depth, and there would therefore be water in only a 
very narrow channel. 

1 Some of the lower ones, however, I find to be 20 and 21 inches. 

2 It is worth noting, that at merely special points, the rise of the inundation would 
vary within periods, according to the changes made in the canals. For example, the 
cutting of some large ones, a carrying off the water which was formerly to the river's 
channel, would influence the rise within a given distance below. 



APPENDIX. 47 

being the mean of two trials respectively 20" and 24*. In the middle 
of the river, 300 yards further out, the rate was LOO feet in 38*. 

•• X.D. — The rate at which the inundation rises and falls would be 
an interesting point. It certainly must be in very different ratios at 
different periods. On the 4th of February I had a mark made at level 
of water on a stone in the quay at Luxor, and on the lGth I found that 
the water had only fallen 4 inches and a fraction (say 4£), which would 
give only at the rate of less than a foot a month. If this were a constanl 
ratio, it would only give a fall of 8 feet during the period of the sub- 
sidence of the river, whereas more than 30 feet (?) have to be accounted 
for, that being the annual rise here. I think there is reason to believe 
that the rise at Thebes, instead of 36, as stated by Wilkinson, cannot be 
more than 25 or 26. See on. 

" I noted a fact which confirms the Shekh's statement as to the rela- 
tions of the inundations to the land ; opposite Karnak, on that side, the 
bank is cut by the river into a steep face. The land here between the 
temple and the river all stands on the level represented by this bank. I 
found it on the 14th February to be 21 feet 2 inches above the water. 
Xow, calculating from the former data as to the quay, and allowing a 
difference of 3 inches (according to note above) for the fall in the river as 
betAveen the dates of the observation here and at the quay, it will be seen 
that the Xile of 1802 would not have been within 3 feet 5 inches of the 
top of the bank, while that of 1861 would just have covered it by 7 or 
8 inches. When this was the case here, other parts of the plain which 
are lower would be covered to the depth of 2 or 3 feet, or more ; but I 
found it impossible to obtain precise information showing how this was. 
Another analogous fact I found, by measuring the depth from the surface 
of the ground to the surface of the water, in a pit dug for drawing water 
by shadoofs, about one-third of the way from Luxor to Karnak, and about 
half a mile from the river. The surrounding land here stands apparently 
about the same level as that in front of Karnak, at the river where the 
bank, as above mentioned, was measured. Here likewise the inundation 
did not reach last year. Accordingly, on measuring to the surface of the 
water in the pit, 1 found that it was nearly 21 feet below the surface of 
the ground in the morning, before the shadoofs were set to work ; and 
this doubtless represents the level of the Nile, for the water in wells ting 
in the alluvium stands, when undisturbed, as nearly as may he at the 
height of tin- river. Iii (lie pit here referred to, which was about 8 feel 
in diameter, at 20 feet deep, I found that by twelve o'clock, wlimi the 



48 APPENDIX. 

shadoofs had been working all the morning, the level of the water was 
lowered by 4 J feet ; but this, or any further diminution, was soon made 
good by the ooze, when the drawing by the shadoofs ceased for some 
hours, and the point already mentioned was reached in the morning ; 
of course the level varies with the rise and fall of the river. It would 
seem, and the point is interesting with regard to ancient towns, that 
everywhere the Nile oozes through its alluvium to a height very nearly 
corresponding with its level for the time being. For example, in the 
plain behind Karnak, there are several depressions, like small dry lakes, 
perhaps a fourth of an acre less or more in extent, and 8 or 1 feet below 
the level of the surrounding ground. From the Fellaheen, who farmed 
there, I learnt that these fill up to a certain height by ooze, as the river 
rises, even when the inundation is not sufficiently high to bring water 
into them from the surface by the flooding from the canals. 

" As to wells or shafts sunk for water in the alluvium near the edge 
of the desert, the conditions are different. I examined several so situated 
on the Goorneh side. In one pit, near Kass E Eeebayk, which was cut 
down through the 3 or 4 feet of superimposed alluvium, and then 
through the partially concreted sand and pebbles of the desert, I found 
the water at mid-day 1 5 feet below the level of the surrounding ground, 
and in the morning, before the shadoofs begin to work, it stands 2 feet 
6 inches to 3 feet higher. Here, however, the supply came from the de- 
sert, and at or about the point at which the water stands in the morning, 
that is about 1 2 feet below the surface of the ground, a little rill pours in 
from the side of the pit next the desert. I was told that here, and in 
others similarly circumstanced, the water, although the supply varies, does 
not rise and fall in correspondence with the Nile. I measured two others 
between this and the Memnonium, which are of small diameter, and of 
the nature of draw-wells, into which buckets descend, and I found the 
water to be about 14 feet and 13 J respectively below the surface level. 
As the covering of alluvium over the desert is not very thick here, the 
height of the water in those wells will probably depend upon the supply 
from the desert. If it were not so, or if other wells existed somewhat 
further out in the alluvium, in which the water, being ooze from the Nile, 
would stand approximated at its level, the measurement from the surface 
of the water in them, to the surface of the ground above, would have been 
a ready means of showing whether the land here is on the same level, or 
lower than nearer the river. 

The plain of Thebes, in relation to the Nile, may be held to be in most 
respects a fair representative of the state of the case generally throughout 



APPENDIX. 49 

Upper and Middle Egypt, and the details which it offers ate more pointed 
and indicative from the presence of some of the monuments in very sig- 
nificant positions. In the tirst place, a glance at the map will readilj 
show the main features. The valley, at the point where it Is net 
first to note it with reference to the Thehan plain — the vulley here, thai 
is, aboul three miles south of Luxor, is somewhat narrowed, the distance 
from mountain to mountain being perhaps from six to eighl miles. Prom 
this breadth, however, it immediately expands as Thebes is approached, 
and the measurement across, in aline with the ruins of Karnak. would nol 
be much less than twelve miles, of which three-fourths may be allowed for 
the river, three for the alluvium on the Goorneh side, six for that on the 
Karnak side, counting both at their broadest, and from two fco three for 
the low slopes of the desert at the foot of the mountains on both sides. 
The course of the river, in flowing through this part of the valley, is some- 
what oblicpie, which generally characterises its line of progress through 
the lower country, as it winds from one reach to another. At t lie s. mt hern 
point, about three miles above Luxor, already specified, its channel 
nearly approaches the eastern desert, but presently trending towards the 
opposite side, it sweeps up to the western desert six miles lower down. 
The plain is thus cut into two unecpial portions, of which that upon the 
Goorneh side is less than half of the other. Besides the main channel, it 
is necessary, from their influence on the irrigation, also to notice those 
lateral offshoots from it which, for about six months of the year, form three 
islands situated respectively above Luxor, opposite Luxor, and in front of 
Karnak. The former of these, or rather the channel which insulates it, 
is the most important. Indeed, there is reason to believe, from the direc- 
tion of the ancient cpiay at the south-west corner of the temple of Luxor, 
which now abuts upon this channel, that at one time the main stream 
may have flowed in very nearly the same line. But supposing that to 
have been the case, the channel in cpiestion, like so many other parts of 
the river, has been the subject of changes since. In the first place, it must 
have become a subsidiary branch; and, again, it has cut with a deeper 
curve northwards, so that its sweep is now behind the line of the quay ; 
and its tendency appears to have been to enlarge its bed. I hit within t he 
last fifteen or twenty years it is stated by residents to he conveying less 
water than formerly, some silting up, or change of current, at the point 
where it branches oil' from the main stream, directing no doubl more of 
t he water into the latter. Alterations of this kind are almost everywhere, 
and always going on. This channel, however, is still an important oneal 
high Nile, although nearly dry al the end of February ; and from it inn the 

i) 



50 APPENDIX. 

lines of several canals, which, although with one or two exceptions now 
old and inefficient, help to bring the waters of the inundations over large 
portions of the plain. A reference to the plan will readily show how the 
canal system operates to accomplish this. Skirting the edge of the 
desert may first be observed the line of one large canal, intended to benefit 
an extensive district. Its mouth, whence it receives its supply as the river 
rises, is a few miles above the plain of Thebes ; and it fringes the culti- 
vated land as far as Koos, a distance of some twenty miles, whence down- 
wards other similar works carry on the same purpose. Embanked on the 
desert side it throws the inundation forward on the plain, and its chan- 
nel being suitably sluiced towards its lower extremity, the waters may be 
dammed up, so that even with a moderate Nile the land is flooded. This 
canal, which irrigates all the back district of the Theban plain, has been 
cut within the last few years. Till then, that is, referring to modern 
times, the work was done less efficiently by smaller conduits, of which I 
have inserted one in the plan, being that which is now mainly operative in 
irrigating the ground towards the centre of the plain, too far from the 
large canal to be within its influence. This conduit canal enters from 
the channel already described. It winds, often with a very serpentine 
course, to the eastward of Karnak, or in the direction of Medamoot, and, 
being embanked on both sides, it is made to convey the water through 
breaches in the dikes over the fields on either hand. 

In this way the main area of the plain between Karnak and the desert 
is, except with a very low Nile, annually irrigated. For the immediate 
neighbourhood of Karnak, and the tract between it and the river, a cer- 
tain provision to facilitate the rise of the water has been made by some 
small canals brought up more or less obliquely from the river ; but it is 
only with what they call a very good JSTile that they are of much use. 
In fact, all the space lying along the margin of the river, from Luxor to 
Karnak, and the district about and in front of Karnak, have, it may be 
said, not more than the natural irrigation to depend upon, and are inun- 
dated only when the Mle itself clears its banks. The rarity with which 
this effectually occurs may be inferred from the fact already stated, that 
only four times within the last forty-five years has the whole cultivable 
land, situated as above described, been covered by the water. 

On the Goorneh side the irrigation is now chiefly effected by one large 
canal, which, entering at Erment, runs on to Gamoola. The portion of 
the plain between it and the river has principally to depend for its inun- 
dation upon the rise of the latter, and as a certain breadth of the land 
here is on a gradual slope to the water, a large part of it is usually covered 



APPENDIX. 51 

every year. Winn, however, this upward .slope ends in the level which 
represents the high ground in the plain, this, just as on the Karnak side, 
is above the reach of the ordinary overflow, and this year a considerable 

strip along the dike of the canal was not Hooded — that is, the height of 
the Nile could not reach it. 

Between the canal and the desert, however, the land was abundantly 

overflowed ; and it must be a very low .Nile indeed with which this could 
not be accomplished; for on its eastern margin the canal is embanked to 
a height of from 8 to 10 feet, so as to throw the water forward. In the 
plain so treated are the Colossi, and the buried substructures of three 
temples ; and on the line where it bounds with the desert stand the 
great ruins of Medineet Haboo, the Memnoniuni, and Kasr E Rubayk 
Each and all of these are now subjected in different degrees to the inun- 
dations. The Colossi are surrounded by it, the substructures of the three 
temples are covered by it, and a high Nile, such as that of 1861, en- 
croaches upon the others which have been named- In Kasr E Uubayk 
the water that year stood to a height of about 2 feet. 

Not only are these vestiges now subject to the range of the inundation, 
but, as a natural consequence, the alluvium has encroached upon them in 
varying degrees, according to their position. The Colossi, which of these 
monuments stand the most forward in the plain, have at various times (?) 
been examined with reference to this encroachment ; and it has been 
found that the alluvium now stands 6 feet 1 inches above the pavement 
of the avenue which passed between them. The highest water-mark upon 
them was likewise shown to be about 10 inches above the alluvium ; ami 
since the cutting of the new canal it is higher still — the water having, with 
the ordinary Nile of this year, gained fully one foot beyond this point, 
while in 1861, according to the accounts I received, it was fully 2 feet 
more, making in all a height of nearly 1 1 feet above the pavement. Now, 
in the first place, it may fairly be assumed, that when the temple (whose 
substructures are now covered by the soil) was built, to which this avenue 
led, neither it nor the statues which adorned the approach to it were 
likely to be so placed that the annual inundation would ilood them. Hut. 
on the other hand, the extent, to which this now occurs, and the thick 
ness of the superincumbent alluvium, can give no general criterion as to 
the results of the river's operation in the interval. For first, It will be 
seen how much the presence of the irrigal ion. and consequently the growth 
of alluvium, is under the inlluenco of artificial means. Second, It cannot 
he known wdiethcr, by dikes or other contrivances which may have long 
been in use to proteci Thebes as a city beforethe Colossi were raised, the 



02 APPENDIX. 

inundations had been so far kept out that their site may at that time have 
been under the level that otherwise would have been subject to the 
natural operations of the river, and that, therefore, when these were allowed 
play when Thebes decayed, the alluvium soon increased here in a greater 
than its normal ratio. Third, Or conversely, we do not know how far 
above the normal line of alluvium the level of the pavement may have 
been at the time of its construction, and therefore we cannot say whether 
the present alluvium above it represents the whole increase since then or 
not. Fourth, There is no possibility of learning what may have been from 
time to time, since the fall of Thebes, the varying system of agriculture, 
and particularly of irrigation here, — whether, at certain periods, there may 
not have been such canals as that recently made on the one hand, or, on 
the other, inferior arrangements, which would have made the inundations 
over this ground, and therefore the deposit, be greater or less at different 
times, and so frustrate all calculation as to rate of increase. 

" Memphis, March 8, Bedushayn. — The alluvial valley, from the river 
to the edge of the desert, may be about 4 miles broad, and the mounds of 
Memphis, covering a vast space, lie about midway across. The irrigation 
of the land, which seems very completely effected, is mainly accomplished 
from the Bahr Yousef, which is dammed up at a bridge, as described in 
the previous case. Minor channels and dikes are brought into play to 
spread the waters ; and these channels, which often have the character of 
new depressions, deprive the valley here, as in most cases where it is 
broad, of a dead-level appearance, and irregularities, with water resting 
in hollows, frequently present themselves. The irrigation of the back 
district, being independent of the Nile's local rise, it may be said never 
fails ; but the tract immediately along the bank, perhaps half a mile or 
more wide, was not overflowed this year. And the bank here, over 
which the water did not pass, was 1 7 feet 1 inches above the water 
to-day. The ground about the mounds of Memphis is certainly not so 
high, according to what seems to be the principle that the valley towards 
the desert is lower : and, indeed, there are tracts of the back district here 
(not however immediately around Memphis) which are not on a higher 
level than 8 or 1 feet above the surface of water still left in the canals. 
I measured one well west from Memphis (about a quarter of a mile), in 
which the water was barely 8 feet below the average surrounding surface, 
In the mounds of the town, the old brick houses, or substructures of 
the lower ones, are sometimes seen in strata, as it were, of different heights, 
showing the growth of one age succeeding another. The Only point 
offering some record of the progress of the alluvium here is beside the 



APPENDIX. 53 

prostrate colossal statue of Ramses II. The excavation of the nature of a 
trench, which had been made to disclose it, had uncovered at its feet the 
Lower portion of a building, being either part of a pedestal on which 
it may have stood, or of a structure with which it had been connected. 
This huilding, so far as ii is discernible, consists of two courses of massive 
stones, tin' upper being laid a few baches within the perpendicular line of 
tin- other, in the manner in which a superstructure above ground is made 
in rest upon the last course of the foundation. As even now there was 
water in the trench, I could not have it cleared for an examination Mill 
deeper of the fabric. But if we take the date of the prostrate statue to 
indicate that of the building, and if we assume the top of the lower 
course to represent the then ground surface, it will be found that the 
following are the data for the increase of the alluvium. From the top of 
the course in question, to the level of the irrigation, this year was about 
9*8, and the general level of the nearest cultivated flat may be stated at 
about 2 feet less; so that the actual thickness of alluvium over the old sur- 
face line is very nearly 8 feet. ISTor can it be supposed that this represents 
all the increase since the days of Eamses II., for it cannot be imagined 
that when the temple was built its pavement was laid on the level of the 
natural surface, and just clear of the irrigation. On the contrary, its site 
would be most likely to have some elevation, * and whatever we conceive 
this elevation to have been, we must add its amount to the eight feel to 
get at the gain of the alluvium within the period in question. But on 
the other hand, there comes into play the consideration referred to in the 
case of Thebes, that we do not know whether the site of Memphis, at the 
peril id when the building in question was erected, may not have been under 
the normal local level of the alluvium, artificial arrangements baving per 
haps, existed, whereby the inundation for a long course of years had not 
been allowed to operate. In this case, the accumulation of the alluvium, 
when the protecting care was withdrawn, would be more than normally 
rapid. But there is always a comparatively narrow limit to any supposi 
tion of the site of the Town being much lower than the influence of the 
irrigation, for even if the latter were hanked out, the nature of the soi] Is 
such, that any depression would be rendered for a certain period of the 
yearaswampby the ooze. From this it maybe held tofollow, thai when 
a massive building like that to which the portion in question belonged 
was to be built, at least a firm site would be sought, or artificalry made for 
it ; and it would seem to be conclusive, that its pavement would be SO 

1 Note.— As in urging excavation below ruin of Memphis. 



54 APPENDIX. 

high, that whatever alluvium is now above it must be held as represent- 
ing a normal growth, at least equal to its own thickness. This reasoning- 
would not apply so well, or at all to the Colossi, as they are founded upon 
the desert where the nitration would not be operative, as in the case of 
Memphis, whicb stood upon the alluvial plain. It is particularly worthy 
of remark, that the peculiarity of Memphis would make deep excavations 
on its site exceedingly interesting. For, considering that the lower part 
of buildings presumed to be of the date of Ramses II. are now buried to 
the depth of eight feet, and flooded by the inundation ; and considering 
that the same processes were Likewise in operation earlier, it might be, 
looking to the reputation which Memphis always possessed of a vast 
antiquity, that traces of older structures still he at lower levels. As the 
years of the city advanced, that imperceptible surface-growth of debris 
which is generally found to have gone on in ancient towns, would be 
ever stimulated by the relation of the soil to the inundations, and when 
older buildings fell into decay, the fate of at least their substructures 
would be to be covered over by builders of later ages. Deep excavations 
at Memphis might therefore be very important, as well in an historical as 
a physical point of view. But in truth, throughout all Egypt, it may be 
said that all that has as yet been done in the way of excavation, is little 
more than mere scratching, and the vastness of the mine makes us wonder 
whether it will ever be thoroughly explored. In the alluvium, westward 
from Memphis — that is, on the edge of the desert at Sakkara — there are 
depressions, and particularly one, where the water lodges even at present. 
The ground is apparently low hereabout. Sir G. Wilkinson's idea is, that 
the river may anciently have flowed here, and he refers to the statement 
of Herodotus as to Menes turning the channel at a certain distance above 
Memphis. But whether any such statement of Herodotus as to a time 
and personage so obscure is worthy of an attempt at verification, the 
channel, whether originally natural or artificial, of what is now the Bahr 
Yousef, no doubt found its way down somewhere near the desert. The 
present line of the Bahr Yousef is somewhat further out in the plain. But 
nearer the desert a raised dike which traverses the plain, and is formed 
from the earth dug out at its feet, is very plentifully strewed with 
dead shells {Gyrene consobrina 1 and others) brought up with the soil. 
This probably indicates, if not the presence of a considerable water course, 
a more marshy condition along this tract." 

1 As to the relation of the Cyrene to the river, note that I have observed great quan- 
tities of the shell {Cyrene) tolerably fresh, i.e., with colour, in the heap alongside a 



II.— MR RHIND'S BEQUESTS TO THE SOCIETY OF 

ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND. 

By his Will Mr Rhind conveyed to Alexander Kincaid Mackenzie, 
Manager of the Commercial Dank of Scotland, Edinburgh; David Brem- 
ner, of Her Majesty's Customs, Aberdeen ; Alexander Wares, Agent for 
the Union Bank in Wick; and John Stuart uf the General Register House, 
Edinburgh, as liis trustees and executors, his estate of Sibster, in Caith 
ness, and all his other property. 

After many bequests to relations and friends, Mr Rhind leaves a sum 
of L.5000 for the foundation of two scholarships in the University of 
Edinburgh, and L.7000 for the establishment at Wick of an Institution 
for the Industrial Training of Orphan Girls from certain parishes in the 
county of Caithness. 

His bequests to the Society are in the following terms : — 

I.— BEQUEST OF £400 FOR EXCAVATIONS. 

" And further, I direct my trustees to pay four hundred pounds to the 
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, to be expended in practical archaeo 
logical excavations in the north-eastern portion of Scotland, where the 
remains are mostly unknown to the general student, are often in good 
preservation, and from ethnographical reasons are ldtely to afford impor- 
tant information — and I point more particularly, but not exclusively, to 
the upland districts of the counties of Caithness, Sutherland, and Ross . 
and the said Society shall be at liberty to delay the expenditure of the 
said bequest for ten years after they receive it, allowing it or any portion 
of it to accumulate, so as to wait for an opportunity for making a granl 
or grants to a competent person or persons who would lie willing to lay 
out the whole of such grants lor actual excavation, so that none, if possible, 
would be diverted for personal expenses: declaring that it is also a con 
dition that the said Society shall publish the results of such excavations, 
duly illustrated, in their Transactions, or in any way they may determine j 

small branch canal near the Abbasseah (Cairo), just at the boundary of the cultivated 
land and tho desert. This heap constituted either what had turn in | ho trench 
originally, if it were a new one, or the scourings, if old. Tin- distance I,. the Nil,, 
from the spot is rather more than four miles, but there is a large canal within a 
quarter of a mile 



Ob APPENDIX. 



but I recommend a substantive volume to be published under their 
auspices and issued by subscription or otherwise, for with this in view, 
the excavations would be more systematically undertaken, and the archaeo- 
logical data from a given district would be rendered more available by 
being brought together in one focus." 



II.— BEQUEST OF LIBEAEY. 

" I give and bequeath to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, my 
library — that is to say, all the books that I may die possessed of; but as 
the condition hereby attached to this bequest is, that my library, from 
containing mostly works of a cognate character, shall be added to and 
preserved with the library of the said Society, but not kept apart or in 
any way distinguished except by the insertion of a book-plate shewing 
them to have been a bequest, I point out, and trust to the discretion of 
their Council that they will separate these books of mine which are of a 
miscellaneous or otherwise unsuitable character for the library of the said 
Society, and the books so separated I hereby bequeath to the said David 
Bremner." 



III.— BEQUEST EOE FOUNDING A PEOFESSOESHIP 
OF AECILEOLOGY. 

" Whereas, In my said will and explanatory document relative thereto, 
I bequeathed to the Senatus or other competent governing body of the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, a sum from the reversion of the estate of Sibsterfor the 
endowment of a Chair- of Archaeology and History in the said University, 
and as I have since become aware of the alterations in that University in 
operation or proposed under the recent Act, involving the endowment of the 
existing Chair of History and other changes, I conceive that my object 
will be better fulfilled by bequeathing the said reversionary sum, which I 
hereby bequeath accordingly intrust to the Council of the Society of Anti- 
quaries of Scotland for a similar, to wit, the following purpose : — The 
said reversionary sum shall be securely invested for all time coming, and 
the annual interest accruing thereupon shall be paid to a lecturer, reader, 
or professor of archaeology (according to whichever title may be selected 
by the said Council), the election of which lecturer shall be vested in and 
be made by the said Council, as the objects I have in view are two, — 
First., To assist in the general advancement of knowledge ; and Second, To 



APPENDIX. 57 

aid in furnishing some suitable positions of moderate emolument for 
students, which positions are now so greatly wanting in Scotland. I be- 
lieve the latter of these objects will be equally well accompbshed by the 
establishment of a lectureship as above, in connexion with the Society of 
Antiquaries of Scotland, while the former object will, upon the whole, be 
more appropriately carried out, as the scope of a lectureship in archaeology 
and allied subjects might be more discursive than might seem altogether 
to accord with systematic University teaching. I hereby therefore revoke 
the bequest of the said reversionary sum to the said University, and be- 
queath the said sum for the said purpose in trust to the Council for the 
time being of the said Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, declaring that 
it shall be a condition in their appointment of the said lecturer or pro- 
fessor that he shah, be bound to debver annually a course of not less than 
six lectures on some branch of archaeology, ethnology, ethnography, or 
allied topic, in some suitable place; but declaring also that the said Coun- 
cil shall determine whether entry to the said lectures shall be gratuitous 
to the public or by some moderate payment, the proceeds of which shall 
be delivered to the said Society of Antiquaries, or added to the said 
lecturer's emolument; and declaring further, that the said Council shall 
have power to decide all other details, and to decide whether the appoint- 
ment to the said lectureship shall be for life or for a term of years : And if 
at any time it shall appear to the said Councd that the said lectureship 
shovdd have a larger endowment than the sum herein bequeathed may 
provide, the said Council shall be at bberty to request and accept dona- 
tions or bequests to a fund for that purpose ; and I hereby declare, to guard 
against error, that the sum from the proceeds of the estate of Sibster 
bequeathed by me in my foresaid will and relative document to the 
Senatus or other competent body of the said University of Edinburgh for 
the establishment of scholarships, is not affected by these presents. 

IV. — By a letter of instructions to his trustees as to papers and other 
literary matters, he directs them to provide funds for the completion of 
his book entitled " Thebes : its Tombs and its Tenants." The letter con- 
tains the following passage : — "I hereby declare that any profits [from 
the sale of the volume] shall belong to the Society of Antiquaries of Scot- 
land, and that the copyright of the volume shall be their property." 



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